Hi, this is Joel in Victoria. Thanks for listening to our podcast and thanks for supporting the ministry.

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We appreciate you and pray for God's very best in your life.

Well God bless you, always a joy to come into your homes. We love you, we know God's got great things in store for each one of you. He rewards people that seek after him.

If you're ever in our area, I hope you'll come out and be a part of one of our services. I promise you, we'll make you feel right at home.

But thanks so much for tuning in today. I'd like to get started each week with something kind of funny. I heard about this little girl. She was attending a wedding for the first time.

She asked her mom, why is the bride wearing all white? The mom smiled and said, oh white is the color of happiness. Today is the happiest day of her life.

The little girl thought about it and said, why is the groom wearing all black? All right, hold up your Bible. Let's say it like we mean it. This is my Bible. I am what it says I am. I have what it says I have. I can do what it says I can do.

Today I will be taught the word of God. I boldly confess my mind is alert. My heart is receptive. I will never be the same. I am about to receive the incorruptible, indestructible, ever-living seed of the word of God. I'll never be the same. Never, never, never. I'll never be the same in Jesus' name. God bless you.

I want to talk to you today about enlarging your circle of love. Too often we only associate with people just like us. The people that look like us, people that have our same interest, our same personality types. It's easy to include them. We're comfortable. That's what we're used to.

But what about the people that don't dress like us? The people that don't come from our same background. People that we see as being different. It's very easy to just write them off and think, they're not like me. They don't come from my same faith. Or they've got an addiction and I don't. They're old and I'm young. I don't have to interact with them.

No, God put the people in your life for a reason. His love is inclusive, not exclusive. That man at the office may not come from our same faith, but that doesn't give us the right to treat him like he's second class.

Enlarge your circle of love. Find somebody that you would normally not be friendly to and reach out to them. You don't have to agree with everything about them. Just be kind. Be friendly. Show acceptance. Too many people have their walls up. Well, he's got long hair. He's got an earring. Or they're a Democrat and I'm a Republican. They're a bad distant. I'm a Catholic. Or Joel, he's an Aggie. I'm a long horn.

No, get outside of your box. Don't let these labels and these preconceived ideas keep you from reaching out to other people.

The scripture says here in John 724, be honest in your judgment of people. Do not decide at a glance superficially and by appearances.

We don't realize how many times we look at someone and in a split second, we decide if we're going to like them or not. We size them up to see if they fit into our box. Do they look like me? Do I prove the way they wear their hair? Do I like their clothes?

All this can take place in just three or four seconds. We categorize them and they don't measure up to our standards. They don't fit into our box. We just write them all. We make a judgment. Yet we don't even really know the person.

Much of this comes from how we were raised. I know when I was growing up, if I saw somebody smoking, I immediately thought, man, they're a center. They got a lot of problems. In my mind, that was a big category.

It is I got older. I begin to realize being overweight, living stressed out. That's just about as unhealthy as smoking. But I would never see an overweight person in that same light.

Had all these categories in my mind of how I judged people. I've learned since not to make those judgments. Don't look at someone and decide in a glance, get to know the person.

I've seen people that have all kinds of hang-ups, yet they're some of the warmest, kindest people you could ever possibly meet. Really, what causes us to judge is pride. We think, I would never do that. I would never smoke. I would never wear what she has on.

We don't know what we would do. We haven't walked in their shoes. We weren't raised the way they were raised. We haven't had the experiences that they have had. Most of our behavior is based out of our experiences.

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