Jesus Wants Every Scrap

Do you have scrappers in your town? Maybe it's just a 'hood thing. They troll the streets the evening before trash day or early that morning, and they look for things to take to the scrapyard: a railing that's been discarded in a home improvement project, a broken washing machine, copper wiring (That's paydirt right there!), or old folding chairs. It doesn't matter if it's rusted or bent or the birds have made a nest in it --the scrapper will take it. He turns it into cash!

Here's a crazy thing: I want you to imagine standing in your kitchen, maybe helping the wife dry some dishes after dinner, and you hear the sputter of the scrapper's dilapidated old truck coming up the street. Earlier in the day you threw out some old metal shelving. It was twisted and scratched up, maybe there was a screw that had been sheared off and a weld or two was broken. Those shelves should have gone out for the trash long ago. But you finally got around to it, and now the scrapper was fixing to take them. Wait! you yell as you head out the door. You can't take them! They're no good! Look at them, they're worthless. You can't put anything on them, they can't be fixed, and they've even rusted in some spots. Just leave them; they're trash. The scrapper looks at you, completely incredulous. This is what he does. This is gold to him. What on earth is wrong with this guy? he thinks.

Do you know there are some people who do the same thing with Jesus? There are people who think they are so bad, their lives are so worthless, their sins so unredeemable, Jesus can do nothing with them. There are people who stand out by their pile of junk and keep Jesus from turning it into gold. They don't get it! Jesus wants it. Jesus is the ONLY One who can redeem it, who can do something with it. And, Oh! What He can do!

The Apostle Paul was transformed from a zealot who created martyrs to a zealot who became a martyr for the sake of the gospel. Corrie Ten Boom went from a prisoner to a freedom fighter, proclaiming a message of forgiveness and the restorative work of Jesus wherever she went. A sister in Christ, Julie Seals, put her life as an addict, amputee, and drug mule on the cold, hard floor of a federal prison, stepped back and let Jesus take all of it; her first book will be released this year, and she and her husband have shared the gospel with hundreds of men and women sentenced to incarceration all across the US!

I can't speak for any of these folks or any of the others throughout history, but when I did the same, I wasn't always hopeful, I wasn't always convinced I was worth it. And I'm not --in and of myself. But Jesus. That's it! But Jesus. It's not about us or our junk or our worth. It's about what He can do. It's about His talents and His forgiveness and His mercy and His story. So, whatever it is. If your sin is so bad you think no one can redeem it, if your health is so bad you think there's no way you can serve, if your talents are so few you think there's nothing you can do, or your life is so small there's no one paying any attention, pile it up and take a step back. Let Jesus have it all. He will take it and make it pure gold. He is known for His amazing restoration work!