No Deposit, No Return ~Mike Hinton, Blanchard, OK~
A styrofoam cup filled with coffee sits on the counter at the convenience store. Beside it: torn packaging that recently held cream and sugar, and a brown plastic stick used for a few seconds to blend the concoction. Four items useful for the moment, but soon forgotten and consigned to the dust bin. Throughout the average day, most Americans will toss out dozens of single-use items like plastic bottles and candy wrappers. Evidence of this is amply supplied by the endless parade of garbage trucks that gather the offal of an affluent society. Their common destination: trash monoliths that offer mute testimony to our “no deposit, no return” lifestyle.
Perhaps one day we can discover ways to be more efficient in our use of natural resources, even to the point of mining and recycling things long buried in landfills. However, my concern today is not with the trash itself, but the callous attitude that enables us to toss things away with little or no thought. I fear that more than just excess packaging is getting used and tossed aside.
It’s so easy to fall into the habit of using people that we casually come into contact with and then just unceremoniously dumping them from our consciousness. It isn’t as easy to do that in a small community like the ones I grew up in. But in big cities where you so often interact with people only once or twice, it’s far too easy to value them only slightly more than an empty soda bottle. There’s little point in being kind or even civil to these strangers because both you and they will blend into the crowded anonymity of urban life.
Why stroke up a friendly conversation with the supermarket checker? It will be a different person next time anyway. What’s the point in slowing down to let that old pickup merge ahead of you? If you see them again, it will only be through a windshield. And just how likely is it that they would yield a lane to you in return?
Yet how can Christians be the salt and light of the world (Matthew 5:13-16) with that kind of attitude? As He when about His ministry, Jesus made it a point not to regard anyone as disposable. Whether it was prostitutes or tax collectors or untold numbers of other societal outcasts, Jesus treated them like they mattered (Matthew 21:31-32). And because He treated them like they mattered, they were able to change for the better. So look at those casual, everyday contacts with fresh eyes. Who can you and I treat with a little kindness and respect, in the hope that they will see “salt” and “light” in us?
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Watergate Proves Jesus’ Resurrection! ~Charles Colson~
I know the resurrection is a fact, and Watergate proved it to me. How?
Because 12 men testified they had seen Jesus raised from the dead,
then they proclaimed that truth 40 years, never once denying it.
Every one of them was beaten, tortured, stoned, and put in prison.
They would not have endured that if it weren’t true.
Watergate embroiled 12 of the most powerful men in the world –
and they couldn’t keep a lie for three weeks. You’re telling me that
12 apostles could keep a lie for 40 years? Absolutely impossible!
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