{"id":5392,"date":"2014-05-27T00:05:51","date_gmt":"2014-05-27T07:05:51","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/nettelhorst.com\/blog1\/?p=5392"},"modified":"2014-05-26T22:20:08","modified_gmt":"2014-05-27T05:20:08","slug":"welcome","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/nettelhorst.com\/blog1\/2014\/05\/27\/welcome\/","title":{"rendered":"Welcome"},"content":{"rendered":"

\u201cDon\u2019t let foreigners who commit themselves to the LORD say,
\n\u2018The LORD will never let me be part of his people.\u2019
\nAnd don\u2019t let the eunuchs say,
\n\u2018I\u2019m a dried-up tree with no children and no future.\u2019
\nFor this is what the LORD says:
\nI will bless those eunuchs
\nwho keep my Sabbath days holy
\nand who choose to do what pleases me
\nand commit their lives to me.
\nI will give them\u2014within the walls of my house\u2014
\na memorial and a name
\nfar greater than sons and daughters could give.
\nFor the name I give them is an everlasting one.
\nIt will never disappear!
\n\u201cI will also bless the foreigners who commit themselves to the LORD,
\nwho serve him and love his name,
\nwho worship him and do not desecrate the Sabbath day of rest,
\nand who hold fast to my covenant.
\nI will bring them to my holy mountain of Jerusalem
\nand will fill them with joy in my house of prayer.
\nI will accept their burnt offerings and sacrifices,
\nbecause my Temple will be called a house of prayer for all nations.
\nFor the Sovereign LORD,
\nwho brings back the outcasts of Israel, says:
\nI will bring others, too,
\nbesides my people Israel.\u201d (Isaiah 56:3-8)<\/em>\n<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

It\u2019s human nature to exclude the outsider. It is also the human fear: those in a new job, a new school, a new place, experience the fear of not belonging.<\/p>\n

But God reassured those not originally a part of Israel that his arms were always open wide. God announced that anyone who came to him was welcome and would become as much a member of his people as those who had lived in his land their whole lives. <\/p>\n

God reminded the Israelites, as much as he announced to those new immigrants, that they were not allowed to exclude anyone. Despite God\u2019s words to Moses requiring the Israelites to be kind to outsiders, it was a hard lesson for the Jewish people to learn. Their reluctance to bring God\u2019s message of hope to the Gentiles\u2014the outsiders\u2014continued from Jonah\u2019s reluctance to go to Nineveh, to an early church that doubted that Gentiles could ever become followers of Christ.<\/p>\n

Likewise, God granted the future to eunuchs, those who had no way of passing their memory beyond the present since they would forever be childless. Their future, God said, was not dependent on the children they couldn\u2019t have, but on their relationship with an eternal God who could never forget them.<\/p>\n

God is not exclusive; God is not hard to come to. God welcomes all and we are not allowed to exclude anyone. Everyone is good enough for God.<\/p>\n

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\u201cDon\u2019t let foreigners who commit themselves to the LORD say, \u2018The LORD will never let me be part of his people.\u2019 And don\u2019t let the eunuchs say, \u2018I\u2019m a dried-up tree with no children and no future.\u2019 For this is … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_s2mail":"yes"},"categories":[18,17,16],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/nettelhorst.com\/blog1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5392"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/nettelhorst.com\/blog1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/nettelhorst.com\/blog1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/nettelhorst.com\/blog1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/nettelhorst.com\/blog1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5392"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"http:\/\/nettelhorst.com\/blog1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5392\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5394,"href":"http:\/\/nettelhorst.com\/blog1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5392\/revisions\/5394"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/nettelhorst.com\/blog1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5392"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/nettelhorst.com\/blog1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5392"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/nettelhorst.com\/blog1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5392"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}