Favoritism

A good friend of mine asked me to write a few thoughts on favoritism. So here it goes. The Websters dictionary defines favoritism as 1) the showing of special favor, 2) the state of or fact of being a favorite. When I think of favoritism I think of 2 things.

First, everyone knows what favoritism is because we all know someone who has been shown favoritism by someone else. Or maybe we are the person that is the one who is a favorite of someone else. Favoritism happens all over the planet. In work settings, in church settings, family times, friends gathering, even among our pets. When I was growing up I had a fish tank with 5 fish in it. I will be honest, I had a favorite fish and I still to this day claim that the other fish knew it because they would leave him alone and not swim around him. But yes favoritism happens all over and some people are the favorite and others are not. When we think of favorites we need to realize that they are no different than us and still deserve our love of Jesus even if they do not realize they need it. We need to honor God by showing love to those people because the favorites and non-favorites alike deserve our love and great news. And if the favorite is a Christian help them realize they are a favorite. Next if we are the one favorite person we need to fight against this human tendency by showing love to everyone, not just a select few. If we are the favorite we also need to let the person who seems to favor us know to stop it and show kindness and favor to everyone around us. If we are the favorite we need to look out for the attention of all and point out to other people the greatness of others around us. We need to do everything in our power to stop the favoritism.

The second thing I realized about favoritism is that we are all favorites if we are known and loved by Christ. The first definition of the word can help here. Favoritism is the showing of special favor. What is more special is favor than to die for your enemies while they hated and wanted nothing to do with you. Jesus showed us special favor when he came to earth and lived the life we could never live and then died the death we could never die and then called us to be His own. We, as lovers of Jesus, are the favorites of the King. And thinking about that I realized how amazing it is to be a favorite of the Almighty Creator, the person who spoke and things happened. And knowing that I am a true favorite of Jesus makes me convicted about standing up for the non-favorites around me in this world and letting them know about the One who Favored me.