Is our neighbor really valued by God? It can be easy to accept our own value to the Lord, but what about our neighbor’s value? It’s a little harder when the person standing in front of us is the person who frustrates us.

The person who gets under our skin.

The person who looks different from us.

The person whose opinions make us angry.

The person who has made a mess of their life.

The person we would rather avoid than understand.

However, if we truly believe that we are God’s children, that truth should change more than the way we see ourselves. It should change the way we see other people.

1 John 3:1 says, “See what great love the Father has lavished on us, that we should be called children of God!”

Dwell there for a moment.

The same God who calls you His child also loves the person who frustrates you.

The same God who sees your worth sees theirs.

The same God who offers you grace offers them grace.

The same God who looks beyond your mistakes and failures is willing to look beyond theirs.

That doesn’t mean we have to agree with everyone. It doesn’t mean we excuse harmful behavior or ignore injustice. But it does mean we should be careful about reducing people to their worst moment, their appearance, their mistakes, their politics, their circumstances, or the ways they are different from us.

Before they are anything else, they are someone God created and loves.

And perhaps that is one of the greatest challenges of knowing we are God’s children: learning to look at others as if they are priceless.

What if the person who annoys you today is someone God is inviting you to see differently?

What if the person you’ve written off needs the same grace you have received?

What if, instead of asking, “Why are they like that?” we started asking, “How can I love them?”

Being a child of God isn’t just about knowing where we belong.

It’s about learning to treat the people around us like they matter to our Father, too.

Because they do.