If you really keep the royal law found in Scripture, “Love your neighbor as yourself,” you are doing right. But if you show favoritism, you sin and are convicted by the law as lawbreakers.
- James 2:8-9

We have one last point about favoritism to look at as we close our devotionals for the week. James helps us see how favoritism breaks God’s “royal law.”

Jesus taught something that we now call the Great Commandment: Love the Lord your God … and love your neighbor as yourself. He linked two ideas together in a brilliant way: love of God and love of neighbor. Elsewhere in the Bible we read that it’s not possible to love God without loving your neighbor and that it’s not possible to truly love your neighbor if love for God is absent in your heart.

How does favoritism connect with this Great Commandment?

When we show favoritism, we do to other people something that would be immensely painful to us if it were done to us. No one likes to be left out. No one likes to be excluded. No one likes to be discriminated against. We’re not loving our neighbors at all when we show favoritism.

James tells us to love our neighbors, to show them the same kindness that we want to receive from other people. And James tells us to reject favoritism. The implication he makes is that whether or not we love our neighbors and whether or not we show favoritism will have an impact on our relationship with God.

As we close out the week, we realize that many of us have been on the other side of the docket at some point or another. Someone has shown favoritism to someone other than us and this experience has hurt us. Wounds from experiences like these can go deep and last a long time. And we believe that God wants to bring you healing.

Where do you need to experience God’s healing touch from your painful negative experiences of favoritism? Ask God to give you healing and to show you how to move forward.