Once upon a time a man lived in a little village that was overrun with skunks. This man was a good hunter and trapper and knew how to entice the skunks into cages. People would ask him to come and remove the skunks that denned up under their houses. He became known as the “SKUNKMAN”! He eventually charged a small fee for his services and most people were happy to pay him to take away the odorous little creatures.
One day, after removing the fifth skunk from a home, the homeowner asked what would happen if he didn’t pay. The SKUNKMAN said he put captured skunks into little cages and gave his clients thirty days to pay. If on the thirty- first day he had not received his money, all the skunks he had collected from under the non-payers home would be returned to the front porch. Needless to say, this policy was seldom enforced.
Our sins are like skunks, they seem to hang around and stink. Satan likes to bring them back to our door, over and over and over. He wants to shove our faces into our mistakes and shortcomings. He wants to keep us captive, ruminating over old failures. It is one of Satan’s biggest tricks, to get people to despair and think there is no way they can be “good enough” to be acceptable to God. The good news is that the price of our “skunkey” sins are paid for by the blood of the Son of God, Jesus Christ! Satan cannot bring back our sins for payment, they have been paid, in full!
“ But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.” Romans 5:8
“…and the blood of Jesus, his Son, purifies us from all sin.” I John. 1:7
Most stores have a lost and found department. It’s usually the last attempt to find a lost possession. We go there hoping that some kind, honest person has turned our lost item in. I call Luke chapter 15 the lost and found chapter. There resides three stories of things lost, one about a little lost sheep, one out of a hundred. “Then Jesus told them this parable. Suppose one of you has a hundred sheep and loses one of them. Does he not leave the ninety-nine in the open country and go after the lost sheep until he finds it. And when he finds it, he joyfully puts it on his shoulders and goes home. Then he calls his friends and neighbors together and says, ’Rejoice with me; I have found my lost sheep.” One of the most beautiful poems I have ever found was written by a lady by the name of Ethel M.C. Brazelton entitled, “POOR LIL’ BRACK SHEEP”. It depicts a conversation between a shepherd and his hired servant , the “hirelin”.
Recently I discovered a wonderful poem entitled “ The Universal Prayer” by Alexander Pope. In the tenth stanza Pope writes:
“Teach me to feel another’s woe, To hide the fault I see; That mercy I to others show, That mercy show to me.”
Perhaps Pope was inspired by Luke chapter 18 which mirrors his poem.
“ To some who were confident of their own righteousness and looked down on everyone else, Jesus told this parable. Two men went up to the temple to pray, one a Pharisee and the other a tax collector. The Pharisee stood by himself and prayed: ’God I thank you that I am not like other people – robbers, evildoers, adulterers – or even like this tax collector. I fast twice a week and give a tenth of all I get.’
But the tax collector stood at a distance. He would not even look up to heaven, but beat his breast and said, ’God have mercy on me, a sinner. I tell you this man, rather than the other, went home justified before God” ( Luke 18: 9-13 NIV)
We should be very careful how we interact with our fellow travelers, for we are interacting with the personification of Jesus. How we treat others is how we treat Jesus. “Bear with each other and forgive one another if any of you has a grievance against someone. Forgive as the Lord forgave you” (Col. 3:13).
Weighed in the Balances
By Lou David Allen
He fed the hungry,
Visited the sick,
Gave his money,
For a great cause.
But warm works
Came from a cold heart,
That would not
Forgive the sins of another,
And so he barely registered
On the Angelic Applause – O – Meter.
“And he measured its wall,
seventy-two yards, according to
human measurements, which are also
angelic measurements.
Rev 21:17
Down where we live it doesn’t snow much. When it does, we love it, well, most of us. The kids hope with the snow comes a snow day away from school. Most folks never lose their wonder at snow’s beauty and its nature of covering the most unsightly sights. Even a junkyard takes on a beauty not its own when snow falls and covers the old cars. Snow! Snow is a transformer of the ugly to the beautiful.
Lewis Carroll had Alice in “Through the Looking Glass” describe snow to her kitty this way.
“Do you hear the snow against the windowpanes, Kitty? How nice and soft it sounds! Just as if someone was kissing the window all over outside. I wonder if the snow loves the trees and fields, and that it kisses them so gently? And then it covers them up snug, you know, with a white quilt; and perhaps it says, ’Go to sleep, darlings, till the summer comes again.’ And when they wake up in the summer, Kitty, they dress themselves all in green, and dance about – whenever the wind blows – oh, that’s very pretty!” cried Alice, dropping the ball of worsted to clap her hands. “And I do so wish it was true! I’m sure the woods look sleepy in the autumn, when the leaves are getting brown.”
One day long ago, my buddy and I decided to drive his old car across a dry creek bed. A fun idea turned out to be a bad idea. Half way over, we sunk deep in the gravel. Everything we tried to get unstuck did not work. Idea after idea failed. Our “horse” was stuck, for sure and for certain. Evening was coming on and our options were walking home or going to someone’s house and calling home. In those days there were no cell phones. Both plans were not acceptable to a couple of enterprising fellows like us. Either option spelled defeat. Of course, we were, in fact, completely defeated. By now my mom, who kept close tabs on me, even though I considered that not needful, had dispatched my dad to check on the whereabouts of her number one and only son. And there he was, in his company car, coming over the hill with the radio antenna whipping in the wind. My hero, then and now, and always will be. “What are you boys doing,” he asked. We replied as manly as we could, “We’ve tried everything and we can’t get unstuck.” He didn’t laugh or even chastise us for what we had done as I recall. He had a way of teaching without saying one word. He simply said, “Take some air out of the tires”. We did and Ronny drove out easily. Ronny and I learned a big lesson that day, and it was more than how to get a stuck car out of a creek.
