The following devotional is the third one in a short series inspired by Melo, our beloved but departed, Parrotlet.
“‘The Lord will judge his people.’ It is a dreadful thing to fall into the hands of the living God.” (Heb 10:30-31)
For those of you who have been enjoying reading about our little Parrotlet over the past few days, I am very sorry to have to tell you that something terrible happened to him yesterday, and the sweet little bird is no longer with us.
It happened like this. Being so small (4 inches from “stem to stern”!), he loved to crouch and cling to tiny things. One of the things in his cage that he loved to cling to was a bell inlaid with mirror. And that’s where he was the day it happened. His cage, unbeknownst to us as it’s been cloudy nearly everyday since we got him, was hanging straight in the path of the evening sunshine that shone in my son’s bedroom window. As he clung to the tiny mirrored bell, the sunlight moved directly in line with the little mirror and reflected that intense sunlight right back onto our little bird. The shock threw him into coma. He didn’t last the night. We are all, as you can image, in a state of shock. Though we’d only had him a short time, he had succeeded in worming his tiny way right into the center of each of our hearts. But I believe that nothing ever happens without reason, and though I don’t pretend to understand the reason behind the death of our little bird, I do know that there is a mighty lesson to be learned from it! Let’s take a look:
Melo was killed by the sun.
But how can this be? I mean, the sun is a good thing, right? The sun gives us light and heat . . . We could not survive without either of these! And besides needing light and heat to survive, this light and heat is converted to energy by plants through a process called photosynthesis. And since plants are the bottom of EVERY food chain, the energy originating from the sun is passed along through all living creatures. Without this energy, there would be no food.
Yet the light and heat of this same life-giving solar body can be intensified to the point that it can kill . . .
There is a “Son” mentioned in Scripture: “And a voice from heaven said, ‘This is my Son, whom I love; with him I am well pleased.” (Matt 3:17). We are told that this Son, Jesus Christ, is the “bread of life” (see John 6:48-49). We are told that He is the “light of the world”, and that: “Whoever follows [Him] will never walk in darkness, but will have the light of life.” (John 8:12). So just like the sun in the sky, Jesus supplies us with the very essence of the things we need to live: Light and food.
Can there be another side to this “Son” as well? Let’s look at Ps 2:7-9: “He said to me, ‘You are my Son; today I have become your Father. Ask of me, and I will make the nations your inheritance, the ends of the earth your possession. You will rule them with an iron scepter; you will dash them to pieces like pottery.'”
Yes. The very Son who provides us with the light and bread of life, is said to be able to “dash them to pieces like pottery”.
Why? Why would Someone who loved them (and us!) enough to be our life source — our Light and our Food — want to “dash them to pieces like pottery”? Because they have rejected Him! Heb 10:29-31: “How much more severely do you think a man deserves to be punished who has trampled the Son of God under foot, who has treated as an unholy thing the blood of the covenant that sanctified him, and who has insulted the Spirit of grace? For we know him who said, ‘It is mine to avenge; I will repay,’ and again, ‘The Lord will judge his people.’ It is a dreadful thing to fall into the hands of the living God.”
The good news is this, my friends! We don’t have to “fall into the hands of the living God”! We can simply enjoy the Light and Bread of the Son without fear of being dashed “to pieces like pottery”! All you must do is accept Him into your life! The choice is yours to make. Live life abundantly, or fall into the hands of the living God. Choose the first and live; but choose the second, and just like our precious little bird, the same power that would like nothing better than to provide you with life eternal can also strike you down.
Don’t be struck down, my friend! Answer the Savior’s Call. Don’t wait another day! To do so, Click here and enjoy assurance of life eternal!
Please see the Saturday edition of The Illustrator for The Pocket Parrot, Part 4
Love in Christ,
Lyn
Lyn Chaffart, Moderator, The Nugget, Scriptural Nuggets ( www.scripturalnuggets.org), Answers2Prayer Ministries, www.Answers2Prayer.org
(To access the entire “The Pocket Parrot” mini-series, please click here.)