I love to watch Extreme Makeover: Home Edition. There's something amazing to me about how someone can be in such a desperate situation and then they get something they never expected and could barely dream about. The first thing that happens after the family is safely away on vacation is that what is old has to come down. And come down it does. It seems they're always finding new ways to bring down the old house.
The old house represents stress, limitations, worry, fear, anger, and a whole host of other nasty things that the family experiences. In the following clip, those emotions are demolished in a moment of time and leave room for the above house to be built.
There's something though, about this type of show that sort of bothers me. I could never really put my finger on it until just recently, and then it all became clear as I heard our pastor talk about what Jesus did for us while we were still in our darkness, when we were still rejecting Him.
What about the person who ISN'T taking in handicapped kids and adopting them, but is just working faithfully to pay the bills for the spouse and kids he/she has? What about the one who ISN'T fund-raising for Multiple Sclerosis or the Heart Foundation, or who DOESN'T have terminal cancer and up to their eyeballs in medical debt, or who ISN'T making a huge impact on their community in some way, but just slogs away, day after day, dealing with all kinds of insults and ingratitude even from people in their families, and keeps on because it's the right thing to do? It appears that the TV show only has the budget to help those who "deserve" the help. I know that ABC only has so much money and that they are looking for a good story. It's good television. And I do like the show for a lot more reasons than just the family getting a new home.
What I'm trying to do is use this as a springboard to talk about something even more important than a nice home.
The Bible tells us that we might hesitate to die for a righteous man, and that some of us would even dare to die for a good man. But Jesus went way above and beyond.
He died for us when we were still spitting in His face.
In His great love, He did it anyway, without regard to how we would take it, whether we would accept it, or whether we even deserved it. He knew we didn't deserve it.
And yet the Great Carpenter offers a new life, a totally radical makeover - complete with demolition, design, construction ... and a final Reveal that's out of this world.
That's Extreme.
The old house represents stress, limitations, worry, fear, anger, and a whole host of other nasty things that the family experiences. In the following clip, those emotions are demolished in a moment of time and leave room for the above house to be built.
There's something though, about this type of show that sort of bothers me. I could never really put my finger on it until just recently, and then it all became clear as I heard our pastor talk about what Jesus did for us while we were still in our darkness, when we were still rejecting Him.
What about the person who ISN'T taking in handicapped kids and adopting them, but is just working faithfully to pay the bills for the spouse and kids he/she has? What about the one who ISN'T fund-raising for Multiple Sclerosis or the Heart Foundation, or who DOESN'T have terminal cancer and up to their eyeballs in medical debt, or who ISN'T making a huge impact on their community in some way, but just slogs away, day after day, dealing with all kinds of insults and ingratitude even from people in their families, and keeps on because it's the right thing to do? It appears that the TV show only has the budget to help those who "deserve" the help. I know that ABC only has so much money and that they are looking for a good story. It's good television. And I do like the show for a lot more reasons than just the family getting a new home.
What I'm trying to do is use this as a springboard to talk about something even more important than a nice home.
The Bible tells us that we might hesitate to die for a righteous man, and that some of us would even dare to die for a good man. But Jesus went way above and beyond.
He died for us when we were still spitting in His face.
In His great love, He did it anyway, without regard to how we would take it, whether we would accept it, or whether we even deserved it. He knew we didn't deserve it.
And yet the Great Carpenter offers a new life, a totally radical makeover - complete with demolition, design, construction ... and a final Reveal that's out of this world.
That's Extreme.
So well said. As usual!
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