Written by Pastor Jack Wellman– F. F. Bruce
No Respecter of Persons
The Apostle Peter said, “Truly I understand that God shows no partiality, but in every nation anyone who fears him and does what is right is acceptable to him” (Acts 10:34-35), showing that it’s not about race but about grace, and God will draw near to the humble (James 4:6), no matter their origin. God looks at the heart and not the outside, as “the Lord said to Samuel, ‘Do not look on his appearance or on the height of his stature, because I have rejected him. For the Lord sees not as man sees: man looks on the outward appearance, but the Lord looks on the heart’” (1 Samuel 16:7). Aren’t you glad for that?
No Respecter of Origin
After God opened the door for the Gentiles (us) to be saved, “the believers from among the circumcised who had come with Peter were amazed, because the gift of the Holy Spirit was poured out even on the Gentiles” (Acts 10:45). The Lord told Peter, “What God has made clean, do not call common” (Acts 10:15), and neither should we. We must not respect the rich to the exclusion of the poor. We must not respect a person’s skin color but a person’s heart. We must respect God’s calling of whomever He desires to save. Since God “shows no partiality to princes, nor regards the rich more than the poor” (Job 34:19), neither should we.
No Respecter of the Past
The psalmist wrote that God “forgives all your iniquity, who heals all your diseases” (Psalm 103:3), because “if we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness” (1 John 1:9). That is an ironclad promise. We shouldn’t trip over what’s behind us knowing that God forgives us of all our sins and removes them as far as the east is from the west (Psalm 103:12), meaning they are gone for good since east and west never meet like north does south (at the equator).
Conclusion
I hope you know by now that God bestows His blessings without discrimination, and it doesn’t matter if we’re rich or poor, black or white, Jew or Gentile. God is no respecter of persons, origin, or our past. God has respect only for the humble and contrite of spirit and says, “This is the one to whom I will look: he who is humble and contrite in spirit and trembles at my word” (Isaiah 66:2).
