03.21.07

“Do I have any pleasure at all that the wicked should die?” says the Lord God, “and not that he should turn from his ways and live?” - Ezekiel 18:23.

See, I have set before you today life and good, death and evil, in that I command you today to love the Lord your God, to walk in His ways, and to keep His commandments, His statutes, and His judgments, that you may live and multiply; and the Lord your God will bless you in the land which you go to possess. - Deuteronomy 30:15-16.

Katharine Tuck, thirteen-years-old, has won the contest. Was it a spelling bee she won? No. Was it a scholastic meet that she won? No. Was it an athletic contest that she won? No. No, nothing so mundane as any of those things. Katharine has won the 32^nd annual National Odor-Eaters Sneaker Contest. Odor-Eaters’ press release on their website states, “In the end, thirteen-year-old Katharine Tuck took home the grand prize with a pair of one-year-old sneakers that nearly caused the judges to pass out.” You could probably sum up the condition of her sneakers with one word - those sneakers are just plain rotten. Katharine said, “My sneakers got dirty and smelly by just wearing them everyday to work in my yard, playing sports, and just playing.” Katharine’s sneakers will be “enshrined in the Odor-Eaters ‘Hall of Fumes’ in Montpelier, VT.”

Can you imagine wearing around some shoes that were so rotten that they would nearly make people pass out from smelling them? Those sneakers not only smelled bad but they were banged up, stained up, and taped up. They were just rotten!

Now can you imagine that those rotten sneakers represent your life and that your life is leaving a rotten stench behind? The Bible says, “…a wicked life leaves a rotten stench (The Message).” What kind of odor is your life leaving behind? Is it in the top ten, or the runner up category, or is it just kind of a tolerable odor?

There may appear to be many choices in life but there are really only two. We can choose to live a rotten wicked life or we can choose to live our lives for the Lord. Now, you may be thinking that I’m not so bad but a life lived without the Lord is always going to leave behind a rotten stench. How much better to be remembered as being “blessed”. How much better it is to live the kind of life that is a “blessed memorial”.

If we want our lives to be remembered as being more than just a rotten stench, we must choose another course, another way. That better course, that better way is only found through the Lord Jesus Christ (John 14:6; John 10:10b). As long as you have breath, you have a choice. You can choose to live for the Lord this day. You can choose the way of blessing or you can choose the way of the rotten stench. It is up to you.