Pastor's Corner
Let the Expert Handle
It
3/2/09I like to use every drop of gas I can use before I refuel my vehicle. One of these days I will pay a higher price for this wholly unnecessary practice, but for now it is just how I operate. I recently pulled into a Chevron station with the orange hue of the gaslight burning my retina.
It was a filling station like most. Giant fuel and oil stains marked the concrete, the stench of gasoline was in the air, and the trashcans were bulging. This station, in particular, had seen better days. I slid my card in and out of reader hoping to avoid a trip into the belly of the beast and was rewarded with a “lift the handle and begin fueling” note on the screen.
As my thirsty car drank heavily the fossil fuels I supplied it, I noticed that someone had attempted to beautify the station by placing fake tulips in a barrel filled with sand. They couldn’t have been more out of place, and quite frankly, useless. The station was in such bad shape that a million fresh tulips straight from their fields in Holland couldn’t have improved its looks.
Many times we live life in the same manner. We are trying to beautify that which is foul. We are planting fake flowers in our garden beds hoping that the King will be impressed with us. Paul says in Ephesians 2 “For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith-- and this not from yourselves, it is the gift of God--not by works, so that no one can boast.” We need to stop our beautification efforts and start realizing that it is the righteousness of Christ credited to us that is our true beautification. The rose of Sharon is the one who is counted as our beauty.