Recycling Outcasts

I was surfing through my bloglines and saw this quote by Audrey Hepburn on Mandy Thompson's blog and all I could say was....WHOA! Thanks for posting this Mandy!


"People, even more than things, have to be restored, renewed,revived, reclaimed, and redeemed; never throw out anyone" Audrey Hepburn

Absolutely beautiful. I wonder if Audrey Hepburn was a Christian? It made me dig deep, and ask myself, "Have I ever thrown anyone out?" How are we treating societies "outcasts"? As the church, we have a responsibility to embrace the outcasts, to do life with the outcasts, to point their lives toward the One True God who loves them, and who will "never throw them out".

The only word that I think may be missing from Audrey's famous quote is the word RECYCLE. Crazy? See recycling by definition is, "reusing materials and objects in original or changed forms rather than discarding them as wastes" or put another way, "the process by which recovered materials (recovered by God) are transformed into new products." Each of us has been transformed, all of us deserve to be thrown out as waste because of our sin nature, but Jesus has changed us, transformed us into "new products" to show His glory. We were once outcasts, maybe not in the fullest sense of the word, but we deserved to be...that's for sure. Have you been loving "sinners", "outcasts" or have you gotten caught in the enemies traps and jumped on the train of self-righteousness and put yourself into a different category? Have you been embracing those that society throws out, or have you been walking by as if you don't see them? How can we remind and encourage each other to jump off the SRtrain, and get into the mission field and bring God's children to His recycling plant? Seriously, I want to hear from you, how can we remind each other of the GREAT COMMISSION?