Racism and Christ do not belong in the same heart.

You cannot say you love God while holding hatred for the people He created.

You cannot claim to follow Christ while allowing prejudice, contempt, or superiority to live comfortably inside you.

Jesus never told us to love only the people who look like us.

Or think like us.

Or worship like us.

Or come from where we come from.

He told us to love our neighbor as ourselves.

So before we start examining everybody else, maybe the first person we need to look at is the one in the mirror.

Ask yourself:

If Christ were standing beside me, would He recognize this as love?

Would I be comfortable telling Him this is what I believe?

Would the way I speak about people reflect His heart?

Would the way I treat them look anything like Him?

Because Christianity is not simply about what we say with our mouths.

It is revealed in how we live.

How we love.

How we treat people we do not understand.

How we respond when someone looks different from us, comes from a different background, or has lived a different story.

Before asking whether someone else is worthy of grace, maybe we should ask whether our own hearts are reflecting the grace we claim to have received.

Before questioning someone else’s place with God, perhaps we should examine what we are allowing to live inside us.

Because hatred does not become holy simply because it is dressed in religion.

And prejudice does not become righteousness because we learned how to justify it.

The mirror belongs to us.

Not our neighbor.

Not the person across the aisle.

Not the person whose skin looks different from ours.

Us.

And maybe the real question is not:

“What is wrong with them?”

Maybe it is:

“What is living in me—and does it look like Christ?”

Thinking out loud…

If our faith never challenges the way we see and treat people, perhaps it is time to look in the mirror again.