You remember the old saying: ‘You scratch my back, I’ll stab yours’. Well of course that is not really the way it goes, but truthfully that is how it plays out so many times in my life.
Every time I deny the dignity and humanity of someone, I am living beneath my calling and mandate to treat and serve others as I would treat the Lord Jesus Himself.
I am certain that many of the very people Jesus served were in the crowd yelling for Him to be crucified. Some of the same people who said they loved Him, left Him so they could fit in with the crowd. Judas, took it to another level when he became the world’s best-known back stabber by betraying the Lord.
But to not be too hard on Judas and others, I do this daily whenever I ignore the different, disheveled, downhearted and disdained. I back stab Jesus when I gossip, ridicule, or in other ways speak ill of someone just for the sake of gaining the approval and confidence of my colleagues and friends. Jesus lifts me up out of my slump and I return the favor and grace by ignoring the downtrodden.
You scratch my back, I will stab yours. Jesus anticipated as much as He stated in Matthew 25: 42-45
For I was an hungred, and ye gave me no meat: I was thirsty, and ye gave me no drink: I was a stranger, and ye took me not in: naked, and ye clothed me not: sick, and in prison, and ye visited me not. Then shall they also answer him, saying, Lord, when saw we thee an hungred, or athirst, or a stranger, or naked, or sick, or in prison, and did not minister unto thee? Then shall he answer them, saying, Verily I say unto you, Inasmuch as ye did it not to one of the least of these, ye did it not to me.
Don’t stab Him in the back. Scratch His back, every time you see Him.