“Your line of work? Really?”
February 14, 2020
While watching an American sitcom, during this week leading up to Valentine’s Day, I was intrigued by an exchange between a dying patient and his attending nurse. The conversation went like this:
Patient: I’m scared
Nurse: Of course you are scared. You are beginning a journey into the unknown. But at the end of it you will find peace.
Patient: In heaven?
Nurse: Well, that depends on your line of work.
Supervising nurse overhearing the conversation: Your line of work?
Nurse to Supervisor: Well he’s certainly not going to heaven if he was a money lender.
Again, the context was a scene in a sitcom and the laughter of the studio audience could be heard throughout. However, I had difficulty finding the humor in this conversation and instead of laughing, I found comfort in a Billy Graham devotional I was reading to my mother just before the sitcom started.
Billy Graham wrote, “No matter what sin you have committed, no matter how dirty, shameful or terrible it may be, God loves you. You may [have been a moneylender], but God loves you with an everlasting love.” Graham went on to remind us that because God is love, it does not mean that everything is sweet, beautiful and happy and that God’s love could not possibly allow punishment for sin. God’s holiness demands that all sin be punished, but God’s love provided a plan of redemption and salvation for sinful people. God’s love provided the cross of Jesus Christ by which we can have forgiveness and cleansing.
Thankfully, as we celebrate Valentine’s Day today, and as we live each day of our lives, God does not simply profess His love in words. God proves His love in action. The Bible says in Romans 5: 8:
8 But God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.
God loves us so much even though our sins have led us to places we should not be going, doing things we should not be doing, and saying things we should not be saying. No matter what the sin, and no matter what “our line of work”, God sent His son to die for us so that we can be forgiven and made whole. Our heavenly Father surrendered His greatest treasure, Jesus, to offer a proposal-our chance for redemption. What a love story! The God of the universe bent down from Heaven, leaned toward mankind, and expressed His love to a very sinful people.
“For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life.” John 3: 16
If we surrender our own personal agendas and say, “Yes” to Him, we find ourselves engaged in the greatest love story ever written!
Assuredly, “our line of work” has nothing to do with finding peace in heaven!
Happy Valentine’s Day!