The Royal Command

“A new command I give you: Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another.” John 13:34

There is really only one antidote to the poison of prejudice. There is only one cure for the disease of discrimination. It is the love of God. If you look at every person the way God does – and love the way God does – racism and prejudice in all forms will have to disappear from your life. This is why James calls the command, “Love your neighbor as yourself,” the “royal law,” (James 2:8) because it really is the king of all laws. When you love others as you love yourself, you automatically are going to see others as equal to yourself.

Prejudice of any kind, especially racial prejudice, is not just a weakness; it is wickedness. Racism isn’t primarily a skin problem, but rather a sin problem. In fact, the only reason we look at skin is because of sin. To show just how terrible a sin it is, James said in James 2:10-11, “For whoever keeps the whole law and yet stumbles at just one point is guilty of breaking all of it. For He who said, ‘You shall not commit adultery,’ also said, ‘You shall not commit murder.’ If you do not commit adultery but do commit murder, you have become a lawbreaker.” What he is saying is that sin is sin. So if you are guilty of prejudice or racism of any kind, to any degree, for any reason, your sin is just as bad as adultery or murder, which were considered the two worst sins in the eyes of legalistic Pharisees during that time.

All people are created equal. In the very first chapter of the Bible we are told that both male and female were created in the image of God. Every human being who has ever, or will ever, come into the world bears the image of God. All human beings have equal worth because we are all created in the image of the God who is worthy of all honor and praise. Larry King, who has interviewed countless celebrities, politicians, and world leaders over five decades, was asked to pick out the one interview he felt was his most important. Without hesitation he said, “I was with Martin Luther King, Jr. in 1961 when he was trying to get into a hotel in Tallahassee, Florida. The hotel wouldn’t give him a room even though he had a reservation. The police squad cars were coming because he was blocking the entrance. He knows he is going to be arrested. I am there right next to him, because his lawyer invited me there. King sits down on this porch in front of this small, twenty-room hotel. The owner of the hotel comes out, walks up to King and with a stern look on his face asks, ‘What do you want?’ Dr. King said nothing. The owner asked again in a stronger tone of voice, ‘What do you want?’ Dr. King looked up at him and simply said, ‘My dignity.’ Dr. King was right. He wanted the dignity that we were all born with as creations in the image of God.”

That is what racial prejudice does – it downgrades people from the way God sees them and it degrades them from what they really are – creations in God’s image.

Dear Lord, I'm asking you right now to help me take an honest look at my heart and reveal to me if I'm guilty of prejudice in any form. If I am, I confess my sin to you and ask you to forgive me and to change my heart so that I might be more like you. In Jesus' name, amen.