Text: 1 Corinthians 3:12-15, KJV: 12 Now if any man build upon this foundation gold, silver, precious stones, wood, hay, stubble; 13 Every man's work shall be made manifest: for the day shall declare it, because it shall be revealed by fire; and the fire shall try every man's work of what sort it is. 14 If any man's work abide which he hath built thereupon, he shall receive a reward. 15 If any man's work shall be burned, he shall suffer loss: but he himself shall be saved; yet so as by fire.
My wife and I save our empty plastic medicine bottles so that we can clean them and send them to a Christian organization. We haven’t had many problems over the last few years but recently we sure had a surprise!
The bottle in question was a deep navy blue in color and, to me anyway, felt just as sturdy as the other bottles which come our way. Knowing that “Ministry ‘X’” likes these bottles clean and residue free, I took to boiling some water in order to make clean” happen!
So, I poured the VERY hot water into a basin and one by one dunked our bottles into that basin. Most showed no damage whatsoever, but not so for that blue one. I don’t know if the plastic was softer, weaker, whatever, but it didn’t take long for the bottle to change shape (“warp”, maybe?) and became unusable for medicine.
The lid didn’t fit any longer. Oops.
Paul wrote that our works as believers in the Lord Jesus Christ would be tried by fire, and, that these works would either survive or be burned up. That which survived would be rewarded but that which didn’t would simply be burned up. That isn’t exactly the same thing as a bottle not surviving a bath in nearly boiling hot water, but the principle is the same: the good stuff will survive the test; but the other stuff won’t.
I hope and pray each one of us does our best for the Lord. The rewards will be worth it!
Scripture quotations taken from the King James Version of the Bible (KJV)