It’s Wednesday night, you’re tired and hungry and worse, there's nothing in the fridge to eat. A quick glance and there it is - dinner. You grab a box of spaghetti and a jar of tomato sauce, and there you have it, two things that will silence your growling stomach.
A pot is filled with water and put on the stove while you open a box filled with dry noodles. In your haste a few of the parched pasta breaks in pieces, but they will still taste good. In another pot you heat the tomato sauce and in minutes dinner is ready.
Before you partake of your feast, drain the noodles, T ake just one strand and submerge it into the sauce, allowing it to drink in all it can. Now reintroduce it back into the rest of the reserved pasta. Use a set of tongs, picking up a large portion of the noodles along with the tomato-soaked one. Place them in a heap on a plate. Now, without touching any strands, determine just how many are touching the red one. Can you see where the red strand begins and where it ends?
We can feel much like that one strand of spaghetti, dried and stored away in a box with many other strands just like us. When pulled out of the box some get broken into pieces, hoping that we can still be used for the purpose we were made.
When Jesus was here, he took a cup of red wine and said, "This is my blood shed for you. Drink all of it." (Matthew 26:27-28) We believe and receive all He taught and then drink it and receive absolute forgiveness. We’re not the same, inside or out, after we have received His red blood. We are sent back into the world with the rest of human strands and affect more people than we realize. Some get smudged with quite a bit of our love, joy and patience. Others don’t want anything we offer, and then there are others who don’t even know we are on the same plate.
Galatians 2:20 says, I have been crucified with Christ, and it is no longer I who live, but it is Christ who lives in me; and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by the faith of the Son of God who loved me and gave Himself up for me.
Now imagine the day we are taken out of this world, the pile of spaghetti, and ushered into the place where we will spend eternity. What is left are strands of pasta, marked forever with the red stain of our lives, some with much, some with little and some not affected at all. If you are covered with the forgiving blood of Jesus and your life reveals Him, you have lived the purpose for which you were born.
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