Favoritism is a word that scares people. I know it scares me because I don't like to think I show favoritism, but in reality I do and so do you. We don't try to show favoritism, it just happens, however; we should become more aware of it. We never know the impact our picking favorites may have on the person who we don't favor.

A few weeks ago, the pastor at our college ministry talked about favoritism, and ever since then I have been convicted and actually realized how I show favoritism and even judge people when I really don't mean too. I know that God calls us to love everyone and not to judge and pick favorites, but sometimes we fall short of that. Our pastor spoke about how we favor those who are rich and put down the poor. He used this example: if we see a person on the streets who claim to be homeless and they ask for money, we would feel like they could be lying to us and so we don't give them food or money. If we see a rich person who needs money or something else we would give it them because we would automatically consider them to be a better person than the homeless and they would more than likely be able to do something for us in return. In reality we are all made in God's image, therefore we should help everyone and judge not.

"My brothers and sisters, believers in our glorious Lord Jesus Christ must not show favoritism. Supposed a man comes into your meeting wearing a gold ring and fine clothes, and a poor man in filthy old clothes also comes in. If you show special attention to the man wearing fine clothes and say, "Here's a good seat for you",but say to the poor man, "You stand there", or "Sit on the floor by my feet", have you not discriminated among yourselves and become judges with evil thoughts?"
-James 2:1-4

Favoritism is like value. We favor what we value and sometimes we value the wrong thing and it ends up not even being what we thought it would be. We put favor in those who aren't good to/for us and yet somehow, they are the people we end up showing favoritism to.

The way we stop favoritism is by valuing others. We value others by loving them. Favoritism is natural, but by learning to value people we can stop judging and pursuing our favorites.

"Love your neighbor as yourself" -Mark 12:31