Am I not destroying my enemies when I make friends of them? Abraham Lincoln 

I love this picture. I’m using it again because it’s such a great visual for us as Christians in the world. Can you find the Christians in this picture? No? Good.

As far as I can tell, this is a picture of a bunch of sheep and goats together in a big herd. And when you see them all together like this, you get a sense of their sameness. They all have cloven hooves, four legs, the same shaped heads and ears, they all go “Baa”; they can even mate and produce offspring. Someday they will be separated, but not today. Today they are all together and that’s as it should be.

Nor do you see the sheep all off somewhere together in a corner having special sheep time; they’re all mixed in together. It’s the way it is for believers and unbelievers in the world. Like the wheat and the tares growing side by side, you can’t always tell them apart. Nor do you have to. We mingle — sheep and goats mingling. How else will the message get out?

I look at this picture and get a sense of my own humanity. I belong to the human race. I am a part of the family of God, but I am a part of the family of man, too. We need to feel this. We need to feel our part with others, our connection to the whole. We need to care about that as we do the body of Christ. Christ died to save all of us. Why? If your heart doesn’t beat with the rest of humanity, you won’t know why. It was all for love.