September 05, 2025 | Be God's Family
A World Without Barriers
Scripture: Galatians 3:26-29(NIV)
26 So in Christ Jesus you are all children of God through faith, 27 for all of you who were baptized into Christ have clothed yourselves with Christ. 28 There is neither Jew nor Gentile, neither slave nor free, nor is there male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus. 29 If you belong to Christ, then you are Abraham’s seed, and heirs according to the promise.
Devotional
The community where I spent the first 18 years of my life had to be one of the most homogeneous areas in the state at the time. The only diversity was the large Amish community – so, no, not very diverse. And most churches in the area were also very much the same – all professing a theology and practice of somewhat conservative Christianity. So, everyone looked like me, acted like me and believed like me. It was relatively easy to get along.
The community in Galatia – the land of the diaspora churches – was quite the opposite. They were comprised of a diverse group of races and classes which made Galatia unique. Christianity provided a bridge between these differences. Their faith in Jesus Christ gave them a new shared identity. They were now all children of God – regardless of their race, class or gender. As Paul tries to communicate in Galatians, any former distinctions are now erased and replaced with unity by virtue of faith in Jesus Christ. Paul uses the word “all” twice in verses 26 & 27. All means all. And that leads to verse 28.
Paul was imagining a world without barriers. A world where all will live in peace. A world where people value and respect each other because of their shared faith. A world where faith in Jesus Christ removes any discrimination - any differences based on ethnicity, social status or gender. A world where there is unity of spirit in Christ and inclusion for all.
At the second Jesus died on the cross, we learn that “the curtain of the temple was torn in two from top to bottom.” (Matt. 27:51) That event symbolized that the barrier between God and humanity was now gone and each one of us could come directly before God because of Jesus’ sacrifice. So, if we allow our differences to divide us, we are discounting the entire message of the Gospel. Billy Graham is famous for saying, “the ground is level at the foot of the Cross.” How true that is! Every one of us are equally in need of a savior, no matter where we come from, what our social status might be, what gender we are or any other distinction we can come up with.
How do we as Christians continue to perpetuate discrimination? What ways can we find to truly demonstrate that ALL are children of God through faith in Jesus Christ?
Poem
Water Birth
Psalm 105
O children of Abraham,
God’s servant, you descendants of Jacob, God’s chosen ones. He is the Lord our God; he carries out judgment throughout the earth.
He always remembers his covenantal decree, the promise he made to a thousand generations—
Psalm 105:6-8
The water broke
Through birth canal
I slid from Mother’s womb
Her child I am
Conceived, nurtured
Within her secret room
The water poured
Baptismal birth
A covenant was born
God’s promise sure
God’s claiming grace
From which I can’t be torn
No barriers hold
Me from God’s plan
Though life’s storms ‘round me wild
His judgments true
His promise sure
His will for me, His child
