the Week of Proper 28 / Ordinary 33
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Daily Devotionals
Chip Shots from the Ruff of Life
Disgusting! Yes, that's the word for the day. Disgusting! There are things that are disgusting. Fresh road kill. Nothing is more capable of ruining the old Saturday afternoon drive in the country than a pancaked turtle or opossum. "Why did the chicken cross the road?" To show the turtle and opossum it could actually be done. Yes, road kill is disgusting. It's right up there with a baby's loose bowel movement in a diaper and a garbage can that has been assaulted by dogs and shared with the community.
I'll just about bet that most of you don't have any idea what is probably the most disgusting thing in the world. I know, you probably have a pretty good idea for yourself. But this place is just absolutely a stomach turner when you really look at it. It's a Major League Baseball dugout. Yep, you're seeing that right. A MLB dugout. We're looking at three hours of saliva expectorations, tobacco juice and sunflower seed hulls all mixed in with dumped water and drink supplements and slathered with some good old fashioned dust and sweat. Disgusting!
I know. Why bring up a subject so stomach turning as this? I can hear some of you now. "This is making us sick, Tom." Does anyone's life have a barrier that automatically excludes them from disgusting? Disgusting hits us all. "Yeah, Tom, but do we have to talk about it?" I believe we do. We like sanitary. We enjoy sanitary. We want everything in our lives to be nice and clean and neat and unchallenging to our senses. The last thing we want is to be upset.
If we are that worried about ourselves how can we treat God so cavalierly? How can we stress Jesus' disgust factor in such severe ways? "Anyone who has rejected Moses' law dies without mercy on the testimony of two or three witnesses. Of how much worse punishment, do you suppose, will he be thought worthy who has trampled the Son of God underfoot, counted the blood of the covenant by which he was sanctified a common thing, and insulted the Spirit of grace?" Hebrews 10:28, 29 In short, God is disgusted.
Okay, okay. You're not that bad. As a matter of fact, you do nothing wrong. You kinda hang out and play it as safe as you can. Maybe you're not "on fire" for the Lord, but you're not hurting anybody in the process. "I know your works, that you are neither cold nor hot. I could wish that you were cold or hot. So then, because you are lukewarm, and neither cold nor hot, I will vomit you out of my mouth." Revelation 3:15, 16 We don't have to be bad to disgust Jesus. We just have to simply sit in the pew. To Him, that's disgusting!
'Chip Shots from the Ruff of Life' Copyright 2010 © Tom Kelley. 'Chip Shots from the Ruff of Life' articles may be reproduced in whole under the following provisions: 1) A proper credit must be given to the author at the end of each story, along with their complete bio and a link to https://www.studylight.org/ 2) 'Chip Shots from the Ruff of Life' content may not be arranged or "mirrored" as a competitive online service.
