I wasn't planning on posting anything in this chapter, but it seems as though God is really trying to make it clear to me that I need to make sure I'm "no respecter of persons". This whole chapter was filled with wonderful advice that is so easy to read, but so much harder to apply. It is so easy to not pay attention to (or even worse, turn an upturned nose) to the less fortunate on the streets, while we go and live our lavish lifestyles (they may not always seem that way to us, but when you think about how much more we are well off compared to the rest of the world...). In Luke, Jesus speaks about how we need to not call our friends and neighbors to sup with us, but rather the lame and blind. How often do we do this?? I will be the first to admit that I do not. It is so easy to quick roll down the window and hand out a few dollars, but I often wonder if we should be doing more and truly reach out to these people. Paul points out that not only is being preferential a sin, but he also points out that we are not living out our faith when we do it (v14-17). Although we need to be careful that we don't fall into the exact opposite category of works without faith (Matthew 25:31-46), we need to also be living a life like Jesus, reaching out to others, and not just believing in Him. This morning when I opened my email, I had been sent a little story about clay balls. In the story, a man is exploring caves by the seashore when he finds a bag filled with clay balls. The man picked them up and as he walked the beach he would toss them as far as he could into the ocean. He happened to drop one of them however and it broke open to reveal a precious jewel inside. Astonished the man broke open the remaining 20 or so, all revealing different precious jewels worth thousands of dollars. The man then realized that he had already walked a long distance, and must have thrown away at least 50 balls into the ocean. His treasure could have been much greater had he not thrown it away. The point of the story was how often do we ignore the people that God places in our lives , because they might look like clay on the outside. Instead, we need to take the time to look past the external and focus on the internal, and we will be blessed. Amber