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“When Simon Peter saw it, he fell down at Jesus’ knees, saying, ‘Depart from me, for I am a sinful man, O Lord’” (Luke 5:8). Peter’s response is a very normal and natural response to God. It is the result of both awe inspired by God, and an awareness of our sinfulness in comparison to His righteousness. Adam and Ever, for example, hid and covered themselves after first having tasted sin (see Genesis 3:9-11). But this fallen nature, this shame which is capable of causing us to think that we cannot be reconciled with God, is not where God wishes to leave us
As we see in John 5:45, the natural law accuses us and condemns us. In contrast, God wishes for us to be delivered from condemnation through God’s plan of salvation, Jesus Christ’s substitutionary atonement, his death on the cross satisfying on our behalf the demands of the law. “The strength of sin is the law. But thanks be to God, who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ” (1 Corinthians 15:56b-57).
As Martin Luther rightly points out in his Commentary on Paul’s Epistle to the Galatians, Satan takes advantage of the power of the law and attempts to use the law for his own purposes, as a device that pushes us away from God. Probably Satan’s greatest fear is that Christ’s ministry of reconciliation will lift from us the burden of our sin and failures, for this burden can cause us to shrink from and reject God’s grace because we feel as if our sin is so great that reconciliation with God is impossible. Satan uses the law (all of natural law as well as the Law of the Old Covenant) as an adversary in an attempt to condemn us and undermine God’s grace, but, thanks be to God, we have an Advocate with the Father, that Advocate who speaks on our behalf being Jesus Christ. As a result, reconciliation with our Creator is not only possible, but is in fact God’s plan for us.
Mark Antony in Shakespeare’s play, “The Tragedy of Julius Caesar”, gives an oration in which he says, “The evil that men do lives after them, the good is oft interred with their bones.” I would take issue with this, and, in fact, the end result of Anthony’s speech was that the people of Rome remembered the good that Caesar had done and forgot the evil.
The Bible tells us that all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God. But the Bible also tells us that God loves us immensely despite or sinful nature (see Romans 5:8). And one of God’s most beautiful promises is that God will never forget the good that we have done, the love and compassion we have shown, the virtue to which we have aspired—those things which have been pure and noble and good in our heart, in our actions, and in our aspirations are in fact kept for eternity in the heart of God just waiting to be reclaimed by us if and when we understand and accept His plan of salvation. All that is worth celebrating, all that is worth remembering, all that is true, all that is noble, all that is beautiful will live in joy in the heart of God forever while that which has caused us shame will be expunged if we accept God’s plan of salvation. Every tear will be wiped away. Sin will be purged, cleansed from us, forgotten, if we are willing to simply confess it to God, and let go of the guilt and shame trusting in the effectiveness of God’s substitutionary atonement to cover our sin debt, rather than striving for the impossible, our own righteousness.
Nothing sinful can live forever. In fact, by definition, that which is sinful is that which cannot live forever because it does not conform to the Word, the natural law, by which it was called into being. Nothing which is contrary to natural law can, by definition, live forever. The opposite is true, however, of the pure and noble and good in in our heart, in our actions and in our aspirations. These things are treasures to be laid up in heave and reclaimed for eternity if we are willing to allow Christ to stand between us and the condemnation of the God’s natural law.
All of us need encouragement from time to time, and, all of us can share encouragement with others. Moments of ministry can be treasures that live after us. We have the opportunity each day to be agents of God’s redemptive love. There are so many things that we can say and do in response to the law of love, the law God has written upon the regenerated heart. Do these things in response to the promptings of the Holy Spirit, for such things are treasures laid up in heaven to be reclaimed as living memories in the eternal now of God’s heaven.
The Apostle Paul tells us that we can become like letters from God written to whomever we encounter. When the Gospel of God’s Grace is written upon our heart we become not only letters, but also mirrors helping others see themselves as God sees them, precious persons of infinite worth. And as we become God’s love letters to one another, we grow into the likeness of Christ, and the community as a whole is enriched because of it (see 2 Corinthians 3:2-3, 18).
As you think back over the lives of friends and loved ones who have gone to be with the Lord, and remember treasured moments, or, perhaps remember the kindness shown to you by strangers, these are the treasures that you will remember for eternity, times in which these persons have touched your life in some special way. The simplest gesture may go unnoticed at the time, and later through the power of the Holy Spirit, become recognized by you to have been a redemptive moment in your life. Others are laying up treasures in heaven for you, just as you are laying up treasures for yourself. By being a redemptive agent you are laying up treasures for both yourself and the beneficiary of your love.
I think back to one night when I was a child when my father simply said to me “good night son”. He did so with such tenderness that the moment has remained with me to this day. I think also of a day when he took me hunting, and I don’t remember that he ever did so again. But one day he did, and I remember the sun shining through the golden leaves, the crisp sound of walking through the beautiful leaves that had already fallen, and my father’s presence with me. I don’t remember anything that he may have said that day but I remember the joy of his presence with me.
My dad, a school superintendent, was far from perfect, according to his own self-assessment, sometimes to my regret as I wished for him to have been less burdened. And yet, ultimately, it is not the mistakes that a person makes that live after him or her, but rather the goodness, the love and the kindness that the person has shown… and it doesn’t have to be all the time. Often, all it takes to make a lasting impression that changes a life by bringing someone closer to the redemptive love of God is but one such moment, an “eternally living moment”; that is, a “treasure laid up in heaven”. And as we grow in our consciousness of this fact, we gain courage and confidence as we move along the path to the completion of our own life having experienced “living moments” that await us to be reclaimed in Heaven.
I remember meeting one of my former high school teachers who was back in graduate school at the same time I had entered graduate studies. He had worked with my dad some years earlier prior to my dad’s untimely death. This man came over to me and said, “Aren’t you Byron Perrine? I just want you to know that I’m going into administration because of your father. I want to be just like him.” Wow! Didn’t that man step forward at just the right moment, and wasn’t what he said to me an example of a treasure that will live forever! Would that I take every opportunity to “pay it forward”!
Let us remember moments shared with us by those who have helped shape our life. And may those moments live forever! Let us treasure the memories that we have of the good that others have done, and let go of the remembrance of the mistakes others may have made. Mistakes are not remembered in heaven, they cannot be because in God there is no darkness at all. But, the good things we do, our love and compassion, endure forever, and can be reclaimed by accepting Jesus Christ as our Lord and Savior. And we can share this truth with others, even as Christ has shared this truth with us.
I would like to end with a poem, “The Old Violin—The Touch of the Master’s Hand” by Myra Brooks Welch, 1921.
'Twas battered and scarred,
And the auctioneer thought it
hardly worth his while
To waste his time on the old violin,
but he held it up with a smile.
"What am I bid, good people", he cried,
"Who starts the bidding for me?"
"One dollar, one dollar, Do I hear two?"
"Two dollars, who makes it three?"
"Three dollars once, three dollars twice, going for three,"
But, No,
From the room far back a gray bearded man
Came forward and picked up the bow,
Then wiping the dust from the old violin
And tightening up the strings,
He played a melody, pure and sweet
As sweet as the angel sings.
The music ceased and the auctioneer
With a voice that was quiet and low,
Said "What now am I bid for this old violin?"
As he held it aloft with its' bow.
"One thousand, one thousand, Do I hear two?"
"Two thousand, Who makes it three?"
"Three thousand once, three thousand twice,
Going and gone", said he.
The audience cheered,
But some of them cried,
"We just don't understand."
"What changed its' worth?"
Swift came the reply.
"The Touch of the Masters Hand."
"And many a man with life out of tune
All battered and bruised with hardship
Is auctioned cheap to a thoughtless crowd
Much like that old violin
A mess of pottage, a glass of wine,
A game and he travels on.
He is going once, he is going twice,
He is going and almost gone.
But the Master comes,
And the foolish crowd never can quite understand,
The worth of a soul and the change that is wrought
By the Touch of the Masters' Hand."
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