"Reclaiming What's Been Lost"
July 20, 2016
Jesus said to her, "Everyone who drinks of this water will be thirsty again, but whoever drinks of the water that I will give him will never be thirsty again. The water that I will give him will become in him a spring of water welling up to eternal life." John 4:13-14
The Daily Devotion idea for today was suggested by the Rev. Paul Krause. The good Reverend is undershepherd at two Church of the Lutheran Confession congregations in eastern South Dakota.
A Mighty Powerful Thirst.
That might have been what motivated the thieves who ripped off Atlanta's SweetWater Brewing Company last month.
The amount of suds the thieves managed to take was prodigious. Let's see, there were two trailers that were carrying 40 pallets of SweetWater's Summer Variety Pack. For those of you who don't buy your beer by the pallet, that translates into 3,272 cases or, if you prefer, 80,000 bottles of beer.
The good news is that police have recovered almost all of those bottles and, yes, those bottles were still full. The bad news is that SweetWater says it is going to have to get rid of all that beer. That's $90,000 of beer SweetWater is sending to the recycler.
You can understand why SweetWater would proceed this way. With its reputation on the line SweetWater couldn't afford to put on the shelf any beer which might have been tampered with or that might have been exposed to conditions which might have ruined the contents.
Reading that story, I was reminded of another theft which was far bigger and more tragic than the one that hit SweetWater.
Naturally, I am thinking of the day when Satan managed to successfully tempt God's children: Adam and Eve. With that single, bold move the devil managed to steal billions of human souls.
When the Lord surveyed His staggering loss, He was faced with a choice. He could, like the brewers at SweetWater, look at us and say, "Well, I guess I'm just going to write this off and try again," or He could figure out a way that would enable Him to reclaim the stolen souls.
You already know He opted to go the second route.
What you may not always remember was the cost He paid to have us recycled into people who were useful, forgiven and saved.
The sacrifice our Heavenly Father made was the life of His Son. So we might not end up on the trash heap, Jesus came into this world where He lived for us, suffered for us, died for us, and then rose from the grave. His life and love were wonderfully unbelievable. Still, believing in God's grace, we are saved.
THE PRAYER: Dear Lord, how can we offer proper thanks for all You have done for the fallen children of man? May we never forget the Savior who gave His life for sinners who deserved only to be discarded. In Jesus' Name I pray it. Amen.
