Nate (post: 1278016) wrote:Really? <.< >.>
I don't know which freaks me out the most: The accuracy of my guess that
1) only Nate would take the bait
2) he would quote something about himself and ladies
LOL
Ok ok, jokes aside, I expect God to favors those who love Him in return. But at the same time, God extends His love to all others who don't necessarily love Him (yet or never) with hopes that they'll love Him back some day.
To me, this type of favoritism doesn't has anything to do with race or ethnicity but rather, how close the relationship is between God and that said favored individual. It is
perceived to be race/ethnic-related because some races have cultural practices that go against God. I mean this in all sincerity and with no malice.
Let's take my Chinese background as an example: My family line used to do ancestry worship, pray to various gods (kitchen god, kuan yin etc.etc), muck around with Chinese medium stuff or take up Buddhism/don't believe in God altogether. These are practices that were passed down from generation to generation, and somehow defined my family as Chinese. My family is FuJian/Hokkien btw.
After my parents' generation became Catholics, we've given up those Chinese practices. I know God loves me but it has nothing to do with race but rather, my relationship with God. I'm still Chinese.
I honestly don't have any clear thoughts on Jacob or Esau although I suspect that it has something to do with what's going on in those individual's hearts. I do wish the Bible was more clear on this.
But I do take comfort in knowing that Jesus readily criticized "God's chosen people" such as Pharisees/Teachers of the God's Law and opened his hands to the other sinners (later, opened to Gentiles). The key here seems to me is our response to God, rather than who we are.