How
many times has someone gone to the doctor for a routine check up or a minor
injury that would not go away? And how
many times have they received the worst possible diagnosis from those routine
visists? The diagnosis that they don’t
want to hear is cancer. In 2016, an
estimated 1.7 million new cases of cancer were diagnosed and approximately
600,000 people lose their battle with this horrible disease. And that is just in the United States alone.
Unfortunately
my family is not immune from those statistics.
On August 11, 2017, my father in law lost his battle with cancer. He fought the disease until the very
end. Even when the doctors gave him
little hope of surviving being taken off the vent, he fought for two more days. And in those days he was able to tell the
family that he loved them. He slipped
from this world holding his wife’s hand after telling her that he loved her one
last time. He was finally able to rest.
Cancer
stole him from this world before we were ready to let him go, but it also gave
him an eternal life. My father in law
was a good man. He would go out of his
way to help people and make sure others had the things they needed. On many occasions he gave hurting people
money to buy food or pay a bill. He would give them food out of his own freezer
to make sure they ate. It was not
uncommon for him to give someone a ride to help them get to work. But even with all the good deeds, he realized
something was missing. As he lay in the
hospital one afternoon, he was led to
Jesus and accepted Him as his personal
savior. And now he is walking the
streets of gold.
But his
story is not that much different from thousands of others that come to
Jesus. They go through life being a good
person, helping the sick and poor and feel they are making a difference in the
world. They make their own way and rely
on their hard work for everything they have.
God becomes an afterthought right up until the realization hits them
they can’t overcome their situation.
Then God, in that still small voice, starts talking to them and they
find their way into His presence. They
finally accept that He gives them a way to win the war. They may lose the battles in this life but
they win the war over death. And they
are awarded the same reward as someone that has been in the presence of God all
their life.
Mathew
20:1-16 shows us that everyone is given the same reward no matter when they
come to Jesus. It reads, “1 For the
kingdom of heaven is like the landowner who went out early one morning to hire
workers for his vineyard. 2 He agreed to pay the normal daily wage and sent
them out to work. 3”At nine o’clock in the morning he was passing through the
marketplace and saw people standing around doing nothing. 4 So he hired them, telling them he would pay
them whatever was right the end of the day.
5 So they went to work in the vineyard.
At noon and again at three o’clock he did the same thing. 6 “At five o’clock that afternoon he was in
town again and saw some more people standing around. He asked them, “Why haven’t you been working
today?” 7 “They replied, ‘Because no one
hired us.’ “The landowner told them,
‘Then go out and join the others in my vineyard.’ 8 “That evening he told the
foreman to call the workers in and pay them, beginning with the last workers
first. 9 When those hired at five
o’clock were paid, each received a full day’s wage. 10 When those hired first came to get their
pay, they assumed they would receive more.
But they, too, were paid a day’s wage.
11 When they received their pay, they protested to the owner, 12 ‘Those
people worked only one hour, and yet you’ve paid them just as much as you paid
us who worked all day in the scorching heat.’ 13 “He answered one of them,
‘Friend, I haven’t been unfair! Didn’t you
agree to work all day for the usual wage?
14 Take your money and go. I
wanted to pay this last worker the same as you.
15 Is it against the law for me to do what I want with my money? Should you be jealous because I am kind to
other?’ 16 “So those who are last now
will be first then, and those who are first will be last.”
God
doesn’t care when you accept Him, He just wants to fully accept Him. Like most things in life, it’s never a good
idea to procrastinate but your reward will still be waiting on you. Thank you Lord for always knocking on the
door our hearts waiting for us to allow You in.
