Subtitle: Confess to God the images you are keeping, and ask Him to make you part of the authentic body of Christ, the one made up of forgiven sinners. 

Excerpt: Confess to God the images you are keeping, and ask Him to make you part of the authentic body of Christ, the one made up of forgiven sinners. 

Author: Rich Holt

Scripture

Our verse for today comes from 2 Samuel 17:19, ” Then the woman took and spread a covering over the well’s mouth, and spread ground grain on it; and the thing was not known. ” 

Background

Jack and Jill had a very powerful and lasting impact on me. Even now, when I recite the rhyme in my head, a clear and distinct image comes to mind. Tumbling down the steep, grassy hill are two young kids, their wooden bucket in mid-air, with the water splashing out that they had just retrieved from the well. Behind them, up at the top of the hill, is the well. And it is that well, the one that I remember from whatever book I saw it in as a child, that has forever been my image of what a well is. Made of gray stone, it has a red roof and a hand crank to operate the shaft that spins to raise and lower the bucket at the end of the rope. But that nursery rhyme well is not what I see these days in the yards of folks who live outside the city, myself included. No, these wells are cement cylinders with a lid, and under the lid is barely a hole at all. Descending into the ground is a pipe, a fraction of the size of its cement surroundings, with nary a hand crank in sight. Nowadays, these wells are electric, and they pump the water right into the homes. And now the image that is seen by all is not a stone well with a red roof, but a large, gray rock looking conspicuously out of place in the owner’s yard. For some reason, many choose to conceal their plain cement well with a plastic rock. But underneath is a well, and everyone knows it. 

Application

 I smiled at a mom in church Sunday as she corralled her fidgety son, and she didn’t smile back. That struck me at my heart, this woman who was not trying to put on a mask of peace and serenity while she wrestled internally with I’m not sure what. She is the minority. Authenticity took Jesus to the cross, but it seems to have died with Him there. Few of us show our true selves on Sunday mornings, because, knowing ourselves, we feel others don’t really want to see or hear them, and we fear their reaction if we do unload. That’s a problem for a church claiming to represent Christ. Followers of Jesus struggle, mess up, and fail miserably. So let’s not let a log in our eye be our biggest failure. 

Charge

As we seek Him today, confess to God the images you are keeping, and ask Him to make you part of the authentic body of Christ, the one made up of forgiven sinners. 

Salvation – Eternal Life in Less Than 150 Words