No one wants to feel like an outcast or an outsider.
Can you imagine being in a social environment and needing someone to “hang” with but not being able to find anyone?
That was an everyday occurrence for students at Boca Raton Community High. The courtyard stretches the length of a football field and when lunch break starts the students flood into the courtyard to enjoy their mid-day break.
“Coming here, not knowing anyone, took a toll on my confidence. I became socially awkward. I sat by myself,” said Allie Sealy, a 16-year-old junior.
So she joined with three other students and they started a group called, “We Dine Together.”
It grew and now has chapters all over the United States. The goal is to have no student sit alone!
Psychologist Abraham Maslow wrote in the 1940s that humans first need food and water, then security and then belonging before they can achieve self-esteem and purpose.
Whereas that is a psychological principle, it is also a spiritual one.
BUT – there is some great news that goes along with this idea!
Jesus not only loved the outcasts, misfits, and unlovable . . . he sought them out!
All throughout the book of Luke and the life of Jesus he had a viral love that reached out to ALL people! There was no isolation and exclusion . . . the people others shunned, Jesus approached, accepted, and loved.
This week our verse is about the love of God and how NOTHING separates us!
It is a little longer . . . but so powerful . . . so this morning focus on trying to just feel what the entirety of the verse means. NOTHING will separate us from God’s love . . . nothing.
What an amazing, viral love!
Romans 8:
38 For I am convinced that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor rulers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, 39 nor height, nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.