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!

Believing Is Seeing

(I just thought I'd share this with you today. This devotional is found in Streams in the Desert, an anthological devotional by L.B. Cowman. I believe it was written by James H. McConkey, and is well-worth the reprint!)

 "Said I not unto thee, that, if thou wouldest believe, thou shouldest see the glory of God?" ~ John 11:40.

"Mary and Martha could not understand what their Lord was doing. Both of them said to Him, 'Lord, if thou hadst been here, my brother had not died.' Back of it all, we seem to read their thought: 'Lord, we do not understand why you have stayed away so long. We do not understand how you could let death come to the man whom you loved. We do not understand how you could let sorrow and suffering ravage our lives when your presence might have stayed it all. Why did you not come? It is too late now, for already he has been dead four days!' And to it all Jesus had but one great truth: 'You may not understand; but I tell you if you believe, you will see.'

"Abraham could not understand why God should ask the sacrifice of the boy; but he trusted. And he saw the glory of God in his restoration to his love. Moses could not understand why God should keep him forty years in the wilderness, but he trusted; and he saw when God called him to lead forth Israel from bondage.

"Joseph could not understand the cruelty of his brethren, the false witness of a perfidious woman, and the long years of an unjust imprisonment; but he trusted, and he saw at last the glory of God in it all. Jacob could not understand the strange providence which permitted the same Joseph to be torn from his father's love, but he saw the glory of God when he looked into the face of that same Joseph as the viceroy of a great king, and the preserver of his own life and the lives of a great nation.

"And so, perhaps in your life. You say, 'I do not understand why God let my dear one be taken. I do not understand why affliction has been permitted to smite me. I do not understand the devious paths by which the Lord is leading me. I do not understand why plans and purposes that seemed good to my eyes should be baffled. I do not understand why blessings I so much need are so long delayed.'

"Friend, you do not have to understand all God's ways with you. God does not expect you to understand them. You do not expect your child to understand, only believe. Some day you will see the glory of God in the things which you do not understand."

--J. H. McC

Don't Mess This Up!

Our church has a free breakfast every Sunday morning. Not just for those who attend service, not just coffeecake and doughnuts; I'm talking pancakes, sausage, bacon, cereal, and coffee. Breakfast. I usually don't go. In fact, I haven't been to Sunday morning breakfast for over three years. So, when I signed up to cook, I told myself I'd go the week before I was scheduled just to get the lay of the land and, maybe, to have one of the "regulars" walk me through the process. The problem is, I forgot. I never put it on my calendar. I'd made cooking a priority --that was there in the little grey box, but I'd never prioritized the training I thought I needed. That's a whole 'nother blog article in itself! So, a few days before I was supposed to cook, I asked the pastor's wife to run me through the basics. It's simple, and I'm not completely clueless in the kitchen, but I think I sort of winced when she quipped, You can't mess this up. Never underestimate the human capacity for making the simple complicated.

That's what we tend to do with our spiritual lives sometimes. I mean, we have an entire Book full of historical accounts: how God forgave His people, led His people, made a way for His people, disciplined His people, blessed His people. And we have the New Testament filled with the letters of common men who were on fire(!) for the gospel, who were willing to go wherever they were told to go and endure whatever they had to endure, who saw crowds of people turn their lives over to Jesus, who saw the lame walk and the blind see --who were the vessels of those healings, and who themselves wanted nothing more than to walk in the footsteps of Jesus here on earth. And even though we have all of this at our fingertips, we look for more. We want to wonder if God loves us. We want to feel as though we're not good enough. We want to load ourselves up with expectations and others up with burdens so that we --and they --look like real Christians. We want to twist and suggest and imply until the truth of God's Word looks more like our lives rather than persist until our lives look more like the truth of God's Word. 

Our ladies' Bible study recently spent a couple of weeks talking about the Mosaic Covenant and where it does or doesn't fit into the life of a Jesus follower. Without belaboring my point, Jesus was born into the tribe of Judah, into a Jewish family, under the Mosaic Covenant. He observed Torah. He loved God's Law. He was the Fulfillment of God's Law. In other words, He didn't abolish the Mosaic Covenant, He blew the doors off of it. He opened up the covenant to a more rigorous but less specific way of loving the Lord our God and loving others. Murder was no longer extinguishing the breath of a living being but was having hateful thoughts toward someone; and adultery was not exclusive to sexual contact with someone outside of marriage, but it was lustful thoughts (Mt. 5:21-28). More rigorous for sure! But it was also less specific in the sense that following ten commandments or six hundred thirteen laws was not the endgame; loving the Lord God with all of our heart, soul, mind, and strength, and loving our neighbor is our truest pursuit. Obedience? Yes, we can't love God and disobey Him constantly, but following instructions, moral methodology, behavior modification --these are not the purpose of our relationship with Jesus. Would we choose children who obey us over children who love us? or do we want children who love us, want to obey us, but mess up sometimes?

What makes us think we are any better at relationships than God is? Why do we love our families with abandon and grace, but second guess what God says about His mercy for His people? Why do we make living the Christian life so complicated? Why do we deny the grace of God in the plan of God? We have an instruction manual, the Word of God. All we have to do is obey. It's just that simple. I mean, really, you can't mess this up!