Wednesday, May 18,
2022
“When you harvest
the crops of your land, do not harvest the grain along the edges of your
fields, and do not pick up what the harvesters drop. It
is the same with your grape crop—do not strip every last bunch of grapes from
the vines, and do not pick up the grapes that fall to the ground. Leave them for the poor and the foreigners
living among you. I am
the Lord your God. “Do
not steal. “Do not deceive or cheat one
another. “Do not bring shame
on the name of your God by using it to swear falsely. I am the Lord. “Do not defraud or rob your neighbor. “Do not make your hired workers wait until
the next day to receive their pay. “Do
not insult the deaf or cause the blind to stumble. You must fear your God; I am the Lord. “Do not twist justice in legal matters
by favoring the poor or being partial to the rich and powerful. Always judge people fairly. “Do not spread slanderous gossip among
your people. “Do not stand idly by when
your neighbor’s life is threatened. I am
the Lord. “Do not nurse
hatred in your heart for any of your relatives. Confront people directly
so you will not be held guilty for their sin. “Do not seek revenge or bear a grudge
against a fellow Israelite, but love your neighbor as yourself. I am the Lord. Leviticus 19:9-18
Did
you ever notice how narrowly the Bible describes acceptable behavior? And the target is also
narrowly-specific: If you’re going to claim the name, it must show up in your game.
W.C.
Fields and Mae West were larger-than-life entertainment during the transition
between silent movies and the early sound stage. They were also masters of the flamboyant and risqué
shock banter. They were also both
practicing
atheists, with no religious affiliation, nor any claim to being remotely
moral. The legend has it that when
Fields was in the hospital in the mid 1940’s, and near expiring, Mae West came
to visit him. When she walked into the
hospital room she was shocked to see Fields immersed in reading a Bible. She asked him: Fields…I’ve never
known you to be interested in God, honey; what’re you doing? The old profligate looked up at her, held out
the Bible, and said: Looking for loopholes, my dear…looking for loopholes! I was
born a year after Fields died, but, had I been there I could have saved the old
man a bit of his labors…there aren’t any loopholes in God’s Word. I doubt that would have been any comfort to a
man who’d spent his entire life avoiding God, to know he would be facing the
throne in Heaven shortly…without excuses, and with no lawyer to plead his case.
The
Leviticus passage gets to the very core of who we are. Not many would have the temerity to claim
innocence all the way through that list of non-loopholes.
By
definition a loophole is …a small mistake in
an agreement or law that gives someone the chance to avoid having to do
something… People may attempt to poke holes in God’s Word, but no such loophole,
black hole, or any other kind of hole in the authority of the Word of the Lord
has been found. It has been 76 years
since W.C. Fields found that out…in a face-to-face meeting with the Author.
For You Today
The only
alternative to finding a non-existent loophole is to find the peace that passes
understanding, which is to be found in confessing Christ as Lord.
You chew on that as you hit the Rocky Road with
Jesus; have a blessed day!
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