see potential in people

John 3:17  NLT

God sent his Son into the world not to judge the world, but to save the world through him.

Luke 6:37  NLT

Do not judge others, and you will not be judged.  Do not condemn others, or it will all come back against you.  Forgive others, and you will be forgiven.

Every day we come in to contact with new people as we live life.  Some of them are life us.  Some of them are very different.  It is human nature to form some kind of opinion of the people we meet, but often that opinion is way off and simply wrong. 

When we judge others, we take away our ability to share with and serve others.  It can even take you to the point where it is almost impossible to love the person that you have met the way God tells us to love.  That first opinion we form we either lead us to help or hurt the people we meet.

It is my desire and my calling to help people reach the potential that God has built in to their lives.  How easy is to push people back or hold them back from achieving what God has for them?  This applies to my family, my children and wife, or to the people that I deal with on a daily basis.  I have a choice.  Am I going to see potential in people?  Or, am I going to see people as a problem and as an irritant to our lives?

This week holds many possibilities to speak in to the lives people who will come into our influence.  Our back2school outreach will bring many children to our church and to the churches who are partnering with us.  Here is an awesome opportunity to speak into the lives of these kids.  We have the ability to help many of these students see that they have great potential.  They can be anything they want to be and achieve anything they want to achieve.

I am excited about the people we will serve this week, but I am also scared that we will miss the opportunities that we are given if we pre-judge even one of these kids.  Here me out for a minute…  If I think that the children we are serving are beneath us because of their need, we are wrong.  If I judge the children or their families because of something they wear or the way they look, I forfeit my ability to love as Jesus loved.  If I do anything that keeps me from sharing life, I miss the blessings to God wants to give me or give others through me.

My prayer is that I will see potential in these children and encourage each person to seek the potential God put in their lives.  Each of these students are awesome gifts from God who are worthy of His love and made to win as they live life.  I am praying that God gives many of these students and their families great hope!

Mark 9:42  NLT

But if you cause one of these little ones who trusts in me to fall into sin, it would be better for you to be thrown into the sea with a large millstone hung around your neck.

Pray for back2school:

Pray for the back2school outreach, the six and for the 2,000 students we will serve on Saturday, August 3rd.  Of those students there are more than 40 students who have special needs and will be served on Friday, August 2nd.  Pray for them to find hope in Jesus.