There is a story in the news about a man who after accidentally throwing away his wife’s ring went to the city dump and crawled through tons of trash and filth to find it. He found it. My first inclination was to equate this with God sending Jesus to paw through the filth of sin on planet Earth looking for diamonds. Obviously my ego saw myself as one of the diamonds. Sorry about that. I cannot help the self-love. It is endemic to our species. However, on second thought I realized how wrong I was. This is not a good illustration because it assumes the masses of humanity are trash. Not so. Each child, each person is, flawed though we may be, a product of God’s creative love. There is no such thing as human trash. As much as Jerry Springer and Maury Povich seem to find the worst of humanity to display on television, those people are but victims of ignorance and of our voyeurism. We look at them and gloat that we are not so vulgar. See Luke 18:9.
Then there are those horrific moments when we are overwhelmed by our unworthiness and think we are the human trash. That is such a depressing experience. Lucifer delights in those moments. He thinks we will just give up and not take what Jesus’ offers. Do not despair. Even though your community makes you feel ostracized Jesus never does. Even though decades can pass and people still look at you as a pariah, Jesus never does. You are the object of His redemptive love because He formed you in His image. I know it is difficult for us to believe but Jesus still loves His old friend Lucifer.
Written by Roger Bothwell on November 12, 2011
Spring of Life Ministry, PO Box 124, St. Helena, CA 94574
Rogerbothwell.org