The Devotional - A Look at the Book #587

The Devotional - A Look at the Book #587

by Jesse Abel

Papa J's rules for Livin #10

The bandage can cover and protect a wound, but it cannot remove the pain or heal. One of the bandages we use the most is laughter! I call it “crying out loud… behind a mask!”

 

The Devotional

Ever go hunting for treasure? As a young person this was one of my most favorite things to do and I think that this is because of one winter. I must have been nine or ten and a bunch (ten) of us were sliding down a local hill, we had sleds and inner-tubes. We were having a really good time, sometimes swapping a sled for a tube or vice-versa. Some were neighbors and some were my cousins so the bonding of the event was good too. I was on was my cousin’s sled headed down the hill. At the bottom of the hill was a cement walkway a stripe of lawn, the curb and then the road. The sled hit a muddy spot in the little section of lawn before the street and dumped me into the street just over the curb. My nose began to bleed and the pain on my face began to get my attention. But just as I was about to lament with tears, I saw the five dollar bill that my nose had pushed into view from under the snow. Wow! I’m rich I shouted! Someone handed me their handkerchief and we stopped the bleeding. We all went off to the Walgreen drug store where the soda fountain had just enough seats for each of us to spin on. Didn’t take long for that five dollar bill to dwindle into one dollar and fifty cents in change, (we each spent thirty five cents and there was no state tax) we had a nice day! I miss soda fountains; but I still like hunting for treasure.

Ecclesiastes

Ecclesiastes 1:9-11 – The technological advances of today has caused change in the way we do things, but the redundancy of what has been done in the past is still what will be done in the future. This makes the statement of Solomon in this verse still applicable today. There is nothing of intrinsic value under the sun for man to accomplish since it has already been done. I am sure that Solomon does not refer to the new chariot he purchases every two years with the latest gadgets; even this is redundant and empty in time.

As we will see (if the LORD tarries), Solomon is referring to the times and seasons of the generations of man on earth in that man has a time and the time he or she spends have seasons, like the seasons of creation. Man is limited in that while technology advances; mankind cannot go beyond his time to be born and his time to die and the events that go on in between those two events.

So life without the Spirit of God is dead and limited to the redundancy applied by the curse when mankind fell in the garden. “For in that day that you eat of it, you shall surely die.” Please take a look at the whole context of this statement of God to Adam, in Genesis 2:8-17. Mankind lost his purpose for living. These are important thoughts for those of us who are biblically born again through the death and resurrection of our Savior and LORD. Those loved ones who are lost are lost because they are alive in the redundancy of life with no eternal purpose. There is HOPE and if you are saved, you know it!