Today's Devotional

 

November 13, 2008

                                                                                                                        

Subject:  The Value Of The One 

Matthew 18:11-12  “For the Son of man is come to save that which was lost.  How think ye? if a man have an hundred sheep, and one of them be gone astray, doth he not leave the ninety and nine, and goeth into the mountains, and seeketh that which is gone astray?" 

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I have a very good group of senior students in my high school Junior ROTC program.  Most of them will finish in the top 5 or 10% of their graduating class this year.  While they are academically very talented, their tour in JROTC is teaching them much about the part of life where you learn selflessness and concern for others, something that is not required in our society in order to graduate high school.

I was in a meeting with three of these officers yesterday and they talked about removing a wayward student from our program because of his repeated offenses and disciplinary infractions at school.  I opposed their decision on one main point that hit home with them.  I said only, "this student needs to see great examples such as you all are and if we release him, he loses the benefit of your outstanding role model and we turn him lose to those who don't care if he ever corrects himself."  I went on to cite student after student over their past three years who had begun in a most wayward and misbehaving way and had turned their lives around all because someone stopped to care enough about them.

This is a message for us as believers as we interact with people in the world.  Dr Martin Luther King said, "every man matters to me because I'm involved in mankind."  That was clearly a message that he got from Jesus Christ.  Christ talked extensively about the value of every one.

Today it is easiest to kick people out of our lives because they have "issues."  The hard road is to love them and care for them as if they had none.  This is the life of Christ as He loved me and you with all of our problems.  Christ saw the value of each of us.  Can we see it in others?   

Carlen