Junk Mail

 

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very day it’s the same thing!  I arrive home from work, stop by the mailbox and retrieve the letters, cards, bills, and whatever else the postman has left for me. Mostly, my box is filled with this “whatever else”, a conglomeration of advertisements, cards, offers for new credit cards, and discount coupons for all types of things I don’t need or want.   

 

I’m sure your mailbox looks about the same, always filled with “junk mail” that you didn’t ask for and that you will never use.  As if this weren’t bad enough, my e-mail box also falls victim on a daily basis to all types of junk mail.  Despite my attempts to remove myself from advertisers’ mailing lists, it seems that more and more junk mail finds its way into my inbox on a regular basis. 

 

Although we call this mail “junk mail” we still cull through it!  We look at the advertisements, we flip through the sale papers, and we open the credit card offers just to make sure this is something we don’t need.  In the process, we are tempted to keep these items and sometimes we try them out, much to our regret later on.  Who among us hasn’t signed up for something we really didn’t need and couldn’t afford simply because a piece of junk mail convinced us a certain item was something we simply could not live without? 

 

Have you ever stopped to consider that our lives are mailboxes, and they are constantly being filled with junk mail?  Minute by minute it seems the world is sending us all kinds of messages, promising success, fame, fortune, and whatever we desire if we will simply subscribe to the latest fad or fashion.  Radio commercials, television advertisements, billboards along the road, magazines, newspapers, you name it, at every turn we are bombarded with the world’s junk mail.  

 

Trying to filter through all this to determine what is truly of merit and what is not is a full-time job, one that leaves us not only tired but also frustrated and dejected as well.  We find ourselves wanting to know the truth, simply the truth, so that we can orient our lives to that truth and walk in its light.  Once we know the truth, we can then make each and every decision in relation to that truth and set our lives on a direct course instead of spiraling out of control. 

 

In John 8:32, Jesus gave his disciples the most wonderful piece of mail they had ever received.  Listen to his words, “Then you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free." Just prior to this passage, Jesus also told his disciples that if they obeyed his commandments, they were really his disciples.  The result of being Christ’s disciples is knowing the truth and consequently being free from all the ties the world places on us. 

 

When we come to know Jesus Christ, we come to know the truth and we can see the world’s promises for what they really are—junk mail!  Only in Jesus can we find the truth and only in him can we live a life that is pleasing to God.  So, how long has it been since you checked your heart’s mailbox?  How long has it been since you went through all the mail the world sends to clog life?  Don’t you think it’s time you opened God’s letter, the Bible, and understood what the truth really is?  How about putting an end to all that junk mail today?