Labels

“…Isn't this the carpenter's son? Isn't his mother's name Mary, and aren't his brothers James, Joseph, Simon and Judas?...Where then did this man get all these things? And they took offense at him…And he did not do many miracles there because of their lack of faith…” Matthew 13:55-58 NIV [italics & emphasis mine]



We recently organized a leadership workshop in a hired hall, the kitchen to the hall was meticulously in layout; every cupboard and draw was painstakingly labeled. They had draws/cupboards labels for cutlery, tea cups, mugs, plates, tissues etc. it made it easy for us to find things and more importantly where to put them back at the end of the workshop. Needless to say, everything in the world has a label (name), whether the label is there physical for us to see or mental label.



The desire to label everything is inherent in our human nature; we label things (and people) so that we know where they are and how to relate to them. The Jews in the above scripture had labeled Jesus as ‘the son of carpenter’, they would have no problem with him had he been selling furniture; but because he came out different to the label they had of him, “they took offense”. We need to be careful with the label that people place on us, if we accept these labels (in order to please people), we become limited in what God can do to and through us.



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copyright ©2008Light to my path † † † by TJM Kyara