Preserved

You will need a large field, two or three or more children, and a dog or two. Mix children and dogs together in the field. Cover the scene with blue heavens and simmer till everyone is sufficiently tired out and ready for supper.

Do you remember the carefree days of your youth? You know, before we worried about fleas, sun screen, and kid kidnappers? Sigh, weren’t those the good old days?

We’ve likely preserved those memories beyond their truth. The sky wasn’t quite that blue, the children not so well behaved, or the field weed-free. Yes the old and the new sometimes get confused but John refuses to let us away with that in Christ.

1 John 2:7-9-Beloved, I am writing you no new commandment, but an old commandment which you have had from the beginning; the old commandment is the message which you have heard [the doctrine of salvation through Christ]. Yet I am writing you a new commandment, which is true (is realized) in Him and in you, because the darkness (moral blindness) is clearing away and the true Light (the revelation of God in Christ) is already shining. Whoever says he is in the Light and [yet] hates his brother [Christian, born-again child of God his Father] is in darkness even until now.

Oh-oh.  Are we willing to revisit those sunlit fields of all-is-well-and-good and fix those places where we neglected love?

Prayer: Father we would like to remember our lives as wholesome and pure but you know better. Remind of us areas that we need to revisit with new eyes and new actions of forgiveness…In Christ’s name. Amen.