We are programmed and spend our entire lives needing to label everything. We use labels as our guide as to how to interact and associated with people. If they share our labels then we feel safe to call them “friend.” If they don’t identify with our labels, we dub them an enemy, acquaintance, outsider, someone misinformed, dangerous, deceived, or in the religious community, needing salvation.
This year I am practicing the removal of labels. I’m looking past the form of the person in front of me, and remembering they are made in the image of God which is a spirit. Therefore, they are spirit, they are light, they are love. Regardless of how they are behaving, what they are believing, what label they give themselves, what religion, nationality, gender, sports team or political party. They are my sisters, they are my brothers, they are one spirit with me. John 17:23
This is what Jesus was talking about when the disciples came to him and said, “Your mother and brothers are here!” He said, “Who is my mother and brothers?” And looking around at those who sat around him, he said, “Here are my mother and my brothers! For whoever does the will of God, he is my brother and sister and mother.” Matthew 12:46-50
My ego use to take these words, “whoever does the will of God, he is my brother and sister and mother,” and use them to judge people with my concept of what the “will of God” is! We would do well to resist that temptation to judge others, and instead go within ourselves and evaluate if we are doing the will of God as spiritual beings, who are light and love.
I am seriously crying over the fact that I have spent 50 years labeling people, which caused me to be a very judgmental person. Then I would serve them, do something nice for them, give of my time, energy, money etc. and believe I was loving them. When the truth is, love is not doing, love is the absence of judgement. I wasn’t deceiving them, they knew my beliefs, they knew I was subconsciously judging them, because I would say, “I love you,” but let then show them in many different ways that something was wrong with them, they weren’t good enough! The only one that was being fooled was me.
Our freedom is the absolute release of labels and judgement!
Rhonda Ferguson
Identity Theft Restorer, Teaching People Who They Really Are, And Their Purpose In Life, In Order To Free And Empower Them.