I don’t know about you, but I am guilty of judging people by the way they look. If a big, hulking man is coming near me, I tend to shy away and look for the nearest “safe-looking” person. You may say to yourself that’s just my natural instinct to protect myself. But what if, instead of shrinking away, I were more accepting of differences and looked at others the way God sees them.

Every person is worthy of God’s love, not because of what they have done or because of what they look like, but only because they are a special creation of God. He made each of us, even the scary looking dudes, to have a relationship with Him. If not one of us tells them about the Lord because we are afraid to talk to them, then they may never hear the gospel. Let that sink in. Our fear may hurt someone for eternity. I don’t remember one single passage in the Bible in which Jesus avoided someone because their appearance wasn’t acceptable to Him. Jesus saw their hearts and called the Pharisees a brood of vipers. But it wasn’t because of what He saw on the outside.

I want to take the time to stop, pray, ask for God’s vision for each person I encounter and follow through with sowing His seeds for them. God chose King David, a young boy hardly worth noticing, to start the royal lineage to Jesus. He saw David’s heart, not his youth or impetuousness or even how small he was compared to his brother. It’s time for me to start looking more carefully and stop judging from the outward appearances.