Good Friday morning! Also, a happy Oktoberfest to those of you around the Sidney area. Do you have your lederhosen and knickerbockers all ready to go? I'm not quite sure what either of those are, but the appearance is supposedly important for a good Oktoberfest. In this life we often get tied up in appearances. I'm listening to a CD of rarities from the early Pink Floyd, and I do seem to hear a kazoo featured in one song. Many years later the band members might refute that saying that the sound was made by some technical sounding piece of gear: "no, no, we made that sound with a Elkotronics P-1244 phase-locked, dual-loop, 56khz, oscillating synthesizer, not a bloody kazoo!" The listener might not be convinced, but there it is... We tend to worry overmuch at what people might think of our appearance or performance. Some people expect celebrities to look perfect at all times, and then spend a fortune emulating them. Other folks look to magazines to tell them what to wear, eat, own, and think. Of course, blaming the magazine is not the answer. Over the years much good information has come our way through the print media. The problem comes when we start to judge our personal value by what we see in advertisements and articles. If we don't look as good as Patrick Jayne (The Mentalist), we think that something must be wrong with us. I'm picking on that show because it's the last thing I watched last night. However, the point is that we shouldn't try to judge our value by what the media presents to us.
Like many messages, I bring up the subject in the devotional after being hit with it in Bible study group, other devotionals as you will see below, and even in my own personal Bible study. Some messages come from so many sources that even a writer as slow as I am will take the hint and write about the subject. :-) You and I must be having trouble with this appearance thing right now if the Holy Spirit is putting forth that much effort to get our attention! Notice how I include y'all with me in the problem. No one wants to hear God say, "No, it's just you having this problem!" To a greater or lesser degree, we do often share the same problems with sin. Anxiety or depression might try to tell one of us that our problem is unique, but usually that isn't true.
The cat, on the other hand, cares not a whit for appearances. He has decided that a plastic trash bag full of foam peanuts is a great place for a nap. Unfortunately, his mounting of the "bed" makes for quite a spectacle of sound and cat gymnastics as he tries to get each peanut in its proper place. The lesson is that he doesn't give a hoot what it looks or sounds like. Not that we should act like animals, but perhaps we do care a bit too much about appearances. In the love of Jesus, we need to see ourselves and others as God sees us and them.
Which group or type of person do you see as the "least of these"? We may not want to admit it, but when someone asks that question of us, a certain person or persons will come to mind. For me it's train conductors; I'll admit it this morning. They ride around on trains without a care in the world; occasionally pestering the engineer doing the actual driving with absurd demands like: "Turn right!" or "Let's pull into the drive-thru!" If a few cars fall off the track, they lean out of the cab and say something helpful like, "oops". I'm not sure how anyone doesn't look down on train conductors. :-) I'm picking on Rick this morning, but you probably thought of some group or person when I mentioned "the least of these"
Thinking of how Jesus used the phrase in the Bible: how often have we failed to obey our Lord's command by ignoring a person. At times a person's appearance might lead us to consider him or her dumb or stupid, beneath our notice, or of having no value to us. That wasn't our Lord's way, and praise God that He didn't consider any of us beneath His love. Imagine if the blind beggar had considered himself too dirty to believe in Jesus? What if Christ had refused to die for our sins until we promised to take a shower? I have much to learn about sharing the love of Jesus, including learning to love all people and not judging on appearance. A lifetime of training in the world needs to be unlearned, but Jesus is the master at making all things new! Praise God for His patience with me!
Bucky
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