Several years ago, our garden was producing lettuce generously, and we often made fresh salads to eat as a meal. One evening, as we were enjoying our salads, Dad had trouble chewing one bite. No matter which teeth he tried to chew it with, how hard he chewed, or how long he chewed, he could not even tear through the leaf of lettuce in his mouth. At first, he thought that my sister and I were playing a joke on him, but when we denied it, the faint humor of the situation was gone. He took the leaf out of his mouth and ... it was fake! None of us were responsible for putting it in Dad’s salad, and we were all puzzled about how it got there. Later, we found out that as our next door neighbor shook out her fake plants to get the dust off the leaves, she lost one leaf and it landed in our garden. It looked so similar to our home-grown lettuce that it was “harvested” along with the real lettuce.
Just like the fake lettuce leaf blended in with the real lettuce leaves in our salad, maybe you are “blending in” with the Christians around you, but you haven’t received the Lord Jesus as your own Savior. Maybe you think that you can do good, regularly go to meet with other Christians, maybe even give money to missionaries, and you will make it to heaven that way. However, God’s Word tells us that “we are all as an unclean thing, and all our righteousnesses are as filthy rags; and we all do fade as a leaf; and our iniquities, like the wind, have taken us away” (Isaiah 64:66But we are all as an unclean thing, and all our righteousnesses are as filthy rags; and we all do fade as a leaf; and our iniquities, like the wind, have taken us away. (Isaiah 64:6)). All the good things we do aren’t even good in God’s sight until we are one of His children. The fake leaf went unnoticed until Dad tried to eat it, and you may go “unnoticed” until you stand before God one day and your name is not found in the Lamb’s book of life. “It is appointed unto men once to die, but after this the judgment” (Hebrews 9:2727And as it is appointed unto men once to die, but after this the judgment: (Hebrews 9:27)). “The Lord seeth not as man seeth; for man looketh on the outward appearance, but the Lord looketh on the heart” (1 Samuel 16:77But the Lord said unto Samuel, Look not on his countenance, or on the height of his stature; because I have refused him: for the Lord seeth not as man seeth; for man looketh on the outward appearance, but the Lord looketh on the heart. (1 Samuel 16:7)). When you stand before God, as one who has rejected His free gift of salvation through His Son, the Lord Jesus, it will be too late to repent and accept Jesus’ finished work on the cross. “Behold, now is the accepted time; behold, now is the day of salvation” (2 Corinthians 6:22(For he saith, I have heard thee in a time accepted, and in the day of salvation have I succored thee: behold, now is the accepted time; behold, now is the day of salvation.) (2 Corinthians 6:2)). I hope you will come to the Lord Jesus to save you today!
Messages of God’s Love 5/16/2021