We Are Not Rodents

August 8 2011It seems to be a prolific year for rodents. Mice, gophers, voles, moles, ground squirrels, and packrats must have had a convention of some kind and decided that our place is where they would like to move to. I feel like I am fighting a losing battle, these critters are relentless as well as destructive. And then I saw a trailer for a National Geographic special about some place where rats proliferate in some somewhere in a bamboo forest every so often and their population swells to ten thousand an acre – Yikes!The bad thing is that there is no reasoning with rodents, neither have they responded to my most ardent gospel presentations, not a single one has repented or changed. I suppose they really don’t have a need to, obviously things are going great for them as long as they can avoid my efforts to snuff them out.Sometimes people have the same mentality when it comes to God, “Why change things when everything is going great?” “Why mess things up with taking God serious when I am having the time of my life?” – Because you are not a rodent, here today and gone tomorrow. We are people, men and women created in God’s image (Genesis 5:1-2). We might be biologically similar to other living creatures but we are also fundamentally different, we share the very image of God, we are living souls, we will give account for the way we lived, the choices we’ve made, the gifts and talents entrusted to us, how we used our influence, power, and possessions, and how we have treated others. We will also be judged on how we responded to the truth, to Jesus Christ which will have eternal impact. Gophers and their kin have no such concerns. But don’t just simply take my words, read what Jesus said himself:“The Father, in fact, judges no one but has given all judgment to the Son, so that all people will honor the Son just as they honor the Father. Anyone who does not honor the Son does not honor the Father who sent Him. I assure you: Anyone who hears My word and believes Him who sent Me has eternal life and will not come under judgment but has passed from death to life. I assure you: An hour is coming, and is now here, when the dead will hear the voice of the Son of God, and those who hear will live. For just as the Father has life in Himself, so also He has granted to the Son to have life in Himself. And He has granted Him the right to pass judgment, because He is the Son of Man. Do not be amazed at this, because a time is coming when all who are in the graves will hear His voice and come out—those who have done good things, to the resurrection of life, but those who have done wicked things, to the resurrection of judgment. I can do nothing on My own. I judge only as I hear, and My judgment is righteous, because I do not seek My own will, but the will of Him who sent Me.” John 5:22-30 (HCSB)To God be all glory, love you, Pastor HansPS. I encourage you to read all of John 5, or go for broke and read all of John it will inform you as to who Jesus Christ really is.