Daily devotion

Tree Paint, Masks and Thoughtfulness

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And you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength.’ The second is this: ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’ There is no other commandment greater than these.” Mark 12:31-32 ESV

When I was a young man I worked as a tree surgeon for many years. We tree climbers were a unique breed who loved working outdoors, had an unhealthy desire to risk life and limb (no pun intended) and to a man we all hated tree paint! “Tree paint?” you might ask. “What in the world is that?” Well try to imagine the contents of the La Brea Tarpits where the dinosaurs died and imagine further it being packed into cans with short brushes. Yup – those were our paint pots and we carried them everywhere throughout every tree we pruned. The rule was that every cut we made larger than a quarter must be slathered with that sticky black stuff. We got tree paint in our hair (No fun getting that out at night). It also ruined every shirt, pair of jeans and work boots and even worked its way into some rather private locations! But somewhere in the late 1970’s one wonderful scientist found out something that was the best discovery since chocolate: tree paint didn’t work! Yes! You heard it right. The very stuff we had been carrying out to the furthest limbs of the biggest trees actually didn’t do a thing! The day our boss came in with the news, he phrased it like this, “Even though we know this doesn’t help the trees, our customers are so used to seeing it that we may need to phase it out gradually.” Most of the men laughed, then cheered, and went out back of the shop and gleefully tossed their tar pots into the dumpster!

That scene from years ago reminded me of the news the other day that those of us who are fully vaccinated pretty much aren’t going to need our masks anymore, especially outside. Here in Florida with temperatures climbing into the 90’s that is great news indeed! I am just grateful that we are nearing the end of this terrible pandemic and am not shy about tossing the memories of empty streets and full emergency rooms, along with some of my worn out masks right into the dumpster! But there are a lot of people still very afraid – just like our customers and they will need time to adjust. We do need to be thoughtful as we slowly get back to normal, because following Jesus means being thoughtful and that includes being kind and loving all our neighbors!

Photo by Mare Collantes on Pexels.com

The Beauty of Sunsets

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For you know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that though he was rich, yet for your sake he became poor, so that you by his poverty might become rich. 2 Corinthians 8:9 ESV

Unless there is an eclipse going on we will never see folks flocking to the shore to snap photos of the sun at noon. That’s because at noon the sun is way too bright for all but the most expensive camera lenses to capture and it’s just so ordinary. But come sunset, especially if there are clouds on the horizon, people wait with anticipation for the first colors of sunset as the sun slowly descends into the sea.

In that same way, the love of God in Christ was far too brilliant for most of His followers to receive while Jesus was healing the sick or calming seas. But at the cross as Jesus suffered and His body was wracked with agonizing pains the beauty of sunset dimmed by clouds began to be seen by unlikely candidates. One thief on a cross next to Jesus repented and received the promise of heaven. A Roman executioner believed and a young disciple was entrusted with the protection and care of Jesus’ own mother. In the sunset of His life on earth Jesus died in my place, paid the full price for our salvation and drew even fearful followers out of hiding to place Him in the tomb. How humble and kind of our Lord that He would allow Himself to die that we could see the beauty of His love in His sunset hours on Calvary!

Profit or Loss?

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For what will it profit a man if he gains the whole world, and loses his own soul? Mark 8:36 ESV

Do you remember as a young person, having the idea of compound interest explained to you? It usually went something like this: “If you just put away three dollars a day for the next 40 years, you will have saved $43,800; however if you figure in the interest you will earn over those same 40 years at 5% per year you will find that you have gazillions of dollars saved for retirement!” While that seemed mind-boggling to me, I still never put it into practice until much later in life.

Jesus often talked about risk and reward. He called for his disciples to risk investing everything they owned and everything they hoped for, including their families and futures for His kingdom. It’s not that Jesus was a greedy pitchman, or a con-artist parting folks from their money. Jesus in fact said things like, “Sell all you have and give to the poor…” Mark 10:21 and “…preach the gospel to the poor…” Luke 4:18. Jesus wasn’t interested in getting their financial investments, but rather their relational investments.

How different we all would be if we lavishly invested ourselves in others as much as we do in our retirement savings? Investment means putting our principle at risk. The greater the risk, the greater the reward. Can we stop and ask ourselves the question tonight,

“Who am I willing to give my life for?” Then no matter the risk, begin to daily invest your life in them and trust in God that it will be worth more than you could imagine. But before you invest, remember that risking it all on an investment is exactly what Jesus did for us all!