Whose First in God's line?

Last night was the first night back for the community connections ministry after the Christmas break and I was eager to see and talk with the people we serve in the Chester le area. The evening started off quite well, the bus was loaded quickly, we had a large amount of food, and the weather was not to cold at the time. We arrive at our distribution location and had many volunteers to service on this evening; every thing looked like it was going to be a banner evening and a nice start back to the ministry. That was until an argument broke out between a few ladies in the line, about who was where and when and in what order in the line. Despite several attempts to calm things down, two of these ladies seemed to be more than happy to be in each other’s space and face. Now to give you a perspective of how things normally go, the clients we deal with, line up perhaps an hour or so before we get there and some of them simply leave their buggies in their “spot.” There is no way for us to make a judgement about who was there first except to see their current positions in the line up.

We finally got things settled down but this is not the first time that this issue of who was there first has occurred. On this particular occurrence; a gentlemen waiting in the line also tried to bring some perspective to the ladies, by reminding them that we were volunteers only trying to bless them with free food, even though we came from a different religion than some of those we were serving. This statement gave me a new train of thought for a subject that has been at forefront of my mind lately, which is, Christianity and the behaviour among the believers.

I mean the perfect example of what is happening within the Church, happened last night in the line up. We Christians, like our clients have been invited to partake of a free gift. We all have been asked to act properly and wait on the returning of our Lord, and each one of us in the line are no better or worse than the other and yet we still fight one against the other. Just as ridiculous as the argument was in the line last night, the same applies for all of us Christians who put down and cry foul at one another. None of us deserve to be in God’s line and yet he called us from his servant heart, by way of Jesus Christ to come and dine and reside with him.

So the question I have to ask myself is, am I applying the same ruling to my life as to those in the line? Am I remaining calm and treating those around me with same respect? Am I hurling insults at others in the line? Good questions to ask oneself and better to always keep in my mind.

Salvation is a gift of freedom and since I remain in the line, as do others, my only two actions should be to wait for and honour the host by loving those who wait with me. The only one qualified to judge, reorganize the line or even send someone away is the one handing out the gift of Salvation, Christ himself.