Taste and see that the Lord is good.
….Oh, the joys of those who take refuge in him! Psalm 34:1-3 NLT
Luke 24:1-12 (<<click here to read the passage)
Reading through today’s Bible study notes, a humorous meme popped into my head. I looked up keywords thinking a story might be behind the meme. Well, I don’t know if this story started it all, but I have to say I was surprised, to say the least, at what I found!
I found the “story” on the website of MeatEater, Inc. (<<click on the link to check it out), an outdoor lifestyle company that appeals to hunters and non-hunters alike on topics of hunting, fishing, recipes, and conservation. The morbid article I skimmed through was entitled WHEN HUNTERS FIND DEAD PEOPLE…uh, yeah… It basically talked about how hunters regularly find bodies, many times helping to solve mysteries of missing persons, some who died for fairly innocent reasons and others who had fallen victim to nefarious ne’er-do-wells. The following quote is from the article.
Police say hunters are more likely to spot things most people overlook in the woods. “Good hunters have the game eye,” said Kyle Rustick, a policeman in Antigo, Wisconsin. “They won’t see a ketchup bottle in front of them inside the fridge, but they can pick out a buck’s antler tip at 200 yards and identify anything out of place in the woods.”
In other words, we see what we want to see. In today’s passage Luke the women who had journeyed to the tomb where Jesus and been laid were surprised by “two men…clothed in dazzling robes” (recollections found in other Gospels referred to them as angels). These “men” asked,
“Why are you looking among the dead for someone who is alive? v5
The rest of the Bible study note is what caught my eye!
Often we run into people who are looking for God among the dead. They study the Bible as a mere historical document and go to church as if going to a memorial service. But Jesus is not among the dead he lives! He reigns in the hearts of Christians, and he is the head of his church. Do you look for Jesus among the living? Do you expect him to be active in the world and in the church? Look for signs of his power—they are all around you.
As we live our everyday lives, can we answer those last two questions in the affirmative? We plod through life, day after day, and for many of us our goal is just to get to the end of the day in one piece – and oft times that is challenging enough. How many of us see the world in grayscale, when in reality life is to be lived in a prism of color? In the last half of John 10:10, Jesus makes this glorious statement,
I came that they may have and enjoy life, and have it in abundance [to the full, till it overflows]. AMP
We may expect Jesus to be active in our world but, and here’s what it really boils down to, do you look for Him in your life? Do you look for His activity in your home? At school? At work? In the grocery store? At the post office? Everywhere!
Or are we so blinded by the blandness of life that we have come to expect to find only grayscale visions? Jesus extends to us so much more if we will but see. Let the glorious prism of color fill our lives!
Jan 18th, 2021, Mon, 8:36 pm
