Our lives are full of trash. We are surrounded by trash. We sometimes “talk trash.” Our homes are collection centers for trash, though some of it we set out weekly for the trash collector to take to the landfill. Too many people are “trash”...according to the values and morals of “the day” (those years long gone, when many people today were not yet born, and many others are too old for those values and morals to be more than a fond memory).
Unlike the trash our garbage collector hauls off, people can’t be buried in the county/city dump when they “stink”...or when they become “unfit”...or when simply no longer desired. Oh, we can spray some spiritual Lysol around our tiny corner of existence...but the trash remains. Is there no way to reduce the amount of trash in our world?
There is...but it’s way too much trouble. Enter “indifference”...a shrug of the shoulders and a “nothin’ I can do about it” response...is much easier. The prevailing attitude of today seems to be, “Let those in high places take on the behavior of those in the lowest of places...what is that to me? Let those high-profilers, earning mega-bucks from their trash, keep it...who needs it? Let those who insist on doing things their way, do ‘em their way...they have their “rights,” as they keep telling us. Let those headed down the wrong paths take their lumps and learn the hard way.” Perhaps we Christians should not forget...“there, but for the grace of God, go I.”
Did you know that some trash...not all, but some...can be “recycled”? Well, yeah...it takes some work, but it can be done. Forget the tons of paper, plastic, and containers. We’re looking at something far more important...people. In fact, Christians are instructed to be in the “recycling” business. Oh, it’s not called that, but...well, let Jesus speak for Himself.
“Go therefore and make disciples of all the nations...
teaching them to observe all that I commanded you....”
- from, Matthew 28:19-20, NASB -
Trash. That’s what we Christians were...fit only for the garbage dump, until we got “recycled.” We stunk, like last week’s rotten beef. The sinful body that clothed our sin nature...ragged and torn with sin holes, but far from holy...was good for nothing but to be “trashed.” Our sins were piled higher than the local landfill. But “at the right time” Paul writes in Romans 5:6, God sent His Son, Jesus...so that we could be “recycled” into something “out of this world” fresh and new.
As a Christian, we have been “recycled” into a “new creature”...acceptable unto God. There’s some trash out there that needs a Savior. Does your heart hear that question Isaiah heard so long ago, “But whom shall I send, and who will go for Us?”