If you say you are a Christian — a follower of Christ — and yet you have no compassion for the stranger, the visitor, the immigrant … how can you possibly read of His life and words and not be moved by His grace toward those even His people would have called “the least of these?”

Have you forgotten?

Have you never read them?

Have you only listened to the words of a man in a pulpit that you pay to not offend you so that you won’t fire him?

Does he tell you only what you want to hear? What is easy to hear?

Does he even talk about Jesus of Nazareth at all?

Or does he only talk about why you should fear others not like you? About your country and your flag and your borders and your rights and your safety?

Does he speak gloriously of war and conquering and winning but say nothing of those who have lost it all, are homeless and poor and hungry, or that they alone are to blame?

Does he speak about life choices you make anywhere but the voting booth? Of acceptance, grace, compassion, generosity, charity, forgiveness, love? Toward others? As Christ has shown to you? Blessing as you have been blessed?

Can you even be sure you are attending a church, if that is the case?

Or is it just a weekly political rally with a little churchiness thrown in to make self appear sacred and America feel angelic and warfare seem worthy and greed glitter like golden goodness?

Go back to the source, I beg you.

Read for yourself who your Savior truly is and what He saves you from as well as what He saves you for; what He wants to do through you as well as for you.

Because He is trying to save you from yourself, for the benefit to you and your character in this life as well as the next, and for the blessing of others.

Others like you.

Others not quite like you.

Others, wholly and completely different from you.

The mission field He brought to your neighborhood.

The souls He created in His own image.

The ones He lived and died for, and would live for again, through you.

Don’t let them down.

Don’t let Him down.

And don’t pretend you’re following Him if He leads you to them … and you turn your back on them and walk away.