Differences divide us.
They just do. It takes tremendous effort to engage with people who disagree with us or see life through a different lens or set of values. And we often aren't willing to put in the effort to bridge the gap.
It’s too…
😫 painful
😖 frustrating
☹️ difficult
🥱 time-consuming
🤨 inconvenient
etc.
These emotions quietly become the reason we never obey the last command Jesus gave before He ascended to the Father.
💥 HOT TAKE: I do not have to rebel against the Great Commission to disobey it. I just have to keep choosing people who look like me, vote like me, spend like me, and believe like me. And when I make the choice to stay in my lane, obedience to that commandment dies slowly, albeit politely.
My wife loves this painting that hangs in our home. A family member painted it, and she's hung it in every home we’ve lived in for 20 years. Honestly, I never got much out of it. But I think it speaks to her of the innocence of children before prejudice ever sinks its claws into our hearts and minds.
So let me ask you the question I have to ask myself often.
Who is not in your disciple-making circle simply because you do not like them or agree with them or vote with them or understand them?
⏲️ Contemplate that before you move on.
Jesus Said “GO” Because He Loves Every Person
The last words Jesus left His disciples were not a suggestion. They were a command to GO. Go and make disciples. Where you live. The next town over. All the way to the other side of the earth. (Acts 1:8, NKV. New Kevin Version. HA!)
A disciple is a follower of the teachings of Jesus. And Jesus said EVERYONE is a potential disciple.
That means…
The person who votes differently.
The person who talks differently.
The person who worships differently.
Lots of those people are wildly different from you.
God commanded you to go anyway.
Read Acts 17:26-27 again with fresh eyes. God decided beforehand when the nations would rise and fall, and He set the boundaries of their dwelling places, so they would seek Him, perhaps feel their way toward Him, and find Him.
He determined the boundaries.
Which means the neighbor you avoid is not just a neighborhood dark spot. The coworker who drives you crazy in the next cubicle is not simply a nuisance. God assembled your oikos while you were not even paying attention, and He did it on purpose. Your mission field is already built into the architecture of your ordinary life, in the places where you live, learn, work, and play.
🚫 You do not get to hand-pick your mission field.
🟢 But you do have the responsibility to steward it.
Jesus Broke Down the Wall So He Would Get the Glory
Paul writes to the Ephesians about a literal wall. In the temple, there was a barrier that Gentiles were not permitted to cross. Cross it, and you could die for it. That wall was architecture, but it was also theology, ethnicity, class, and centuries of accumulated contempt. It stood between the outer Court of the Gentiles and the sacred inner courts. Paul calls it the “dividing wall of hostility” in Ephesians 2:14. And he said Jesus came, died, and rose again that it could be torn down until nothing was left between the Jews and Gentiles other than whether they follow Jesus or not.
Here is the accountability moment. If Jesus demolished the wall between Jew and Gentile, what exactly are we doing rebuilding smaller ones? Political walls. Socio-economic walls. Denominational walls. Lifestyle walls. Musical preference walls.
Jesus is in the demolition business. Why do we keep building new walls and widening the gap of the things that divide us?
Inscription found by archaeologists that marked the Wall of Hostility that Paul speaks of in Ephesians 2:14. The inscription reads: “No foreigner may enter within the barricade which surrounds the sanctuary and enclosure. Anyone who is caught doing so will have himself to blame for his ensuing death.”
How Do I Connect with People Who Are Different from Me?
Great question. This is where we stop nodding and start working.
Here are three things that came out of a conversation I had with Keith Matthews, a Christian healthcare worker at an AIDS clinic in Alabama. Keith lives this. He does not theorize about it. Keith, a devout follower of Jesus, spends every day with people who are VERY different from him. Here is what he says it takes to bring them the Kingdom.
1. Find the Common Ground
Common ground is the doorway to the heart.
Racial, socio-economic, lifestyle, theological, it does not matter. There is always something. A belief. A sports team. A shared frustration with the price of groceries.
It may even be a television show.
Keith found common ground with an atheist boss over The Office. That was the door. That was the on-ramp to conversations that went somewhere. Keith also said it was just fun to laugh with her.
This is Step One of the pathway, and most of us skip it because it feels too small to count. It counts. The average person has about 85 casual conversations a week. Dan Grider challenges us to push that toward 200. Casual becomes crucial. Crucial becomes spiritual. Stepping stone, then wait, then the next stone.
You do not build a bridge by jumping. You build it by asking one more question that leads to one more question.
2. See Them as a Product of Their Past, Not as Your Enemy
Anytime I approach someone through the lens of how they are against me, against what I believe, or against how I live, my defenses go up before they even open their mouths. I am no longer a disciple-maker at that point.
I am a combatant.
But when I discipline myself to see a person through the filter of the brokenness and wounds in their story, something shifts. Compassion becomes possible. Love becomes possible. And that stays true even when I strongly disagree with their theology or their values or their politics.
Notice the word I used. Discipline. This is not a feeling that naturally bubbles up. It is a practice you choose.
Try this one. Pray the B.L.E.S.S. model over the person you like least in your oikos.
🤕 Body needs.
📎 Labor needs.
😥 Emotional needs.
👫 Social needs.
✟ Spiritual needs.
Pray it for thirty days and see if your heart does not move.
❤️🔥 It is very hard to stay angry at someone you are actively begging God to heal.
3. Ask Jesus to Let You See Them Through His Eyes
I know. It sounds like a bumper sticker. It is also true.
🙏 It is hard to dislike the people you pray for by name. Especially when you start asking God to show you the hurt or the deception underneath the behavior.
And on the theological stuff? Nobody has the market cornered on 100 percent of truth. Not you. Not me. Not your favorite preacher guy. Approach people with humility and patience.
Look at what Jesus prayed in John 17:20-21. He is hours from the cross. He can pray for anything. And He prays for us, believers who were not even alive yet, that we would be ONE the way He and the Father are ONE.
Read that again. His standard for our unity is the unity of the Trinity❗️
Then He gives the reason. So that the world may believe the Father sent Him. Our division is not just an internal family problem. It is an evangelism problem. Every wall we maintain is a counter-argument to the gospel we claim to believe.
Put It to Work Today
Reading this and feeling convicted does nothing. Obedience happens after we read the article.
Pick one.
Pull out your prayer map. Add the name of one person you have been avoiding. Not the easy name. The one that made your stomach drop while you were reading this.
Pray B.L.E.S.S. over them for the next seven days. Body, Labor, Emotions, Social, Spiritual.
Have one casual conversation this week with someone you would normally walk past. Find the common ground. That is it. That is the whole assignment.
Ask one crucial question. How are YOU doing with all of that?
Your faith is not permission to avoid people who are unlike you. It is a mandate to move toward them.
There is tremendous richness on the other side of that discomfort. Some of the deepest Kingdom relationships of my life started with people I had already written off in my head.
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Who is the name?
✏️ Drop their first name in the comments and let’s pray together. I’ll pray specifically for that person by name, and I know you will too.
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I think what you said about asking questions is so very important. What are some of the questions you would use with someone who has expressed that they don't want to hear about your faith?
Great points