A New Day

By: Pastor Johnie Akers     

Isaiah 43:1, “But now thus saith the Lord that created thee, O Jacob, and he that formed thee, O Israel, ‘Fear not; for I have redeemed thee, I have called thee by thy name; thou art mine.’”  Reader’s Digest once published a fascinating story about the work of Gary Alt, one of the nation’s most respected wildlife experts.  The biologist, with the Pennsylvania Game Commission, often found lost or orphaned bear cubs, but he couldn’t persuade wild female bears to adopt the foundlings.  Alt said that a mother bear labels cubs as her own by licking them, and then she uses the smell of her saliva to identify them later.  If a female bear smells a cub that isn’t hers, she may kill it.  Alt, though, got around this problem with the help of Vicks VapoRub.  He first sedated a mother bear, smeared the decongestant ointment on her nose and then left an orphaned cub with her in her den.  When the bear woke up, she couldn’t smell any difference between her own cubs and the stranger.  By the time the Vicks wore off, she had already licked the new cub and so treated the orphan as one of her own.  In our Scripture lesson today, the Lord calls those that have been redeemed, His own.  His words are poignant:  “Thou are mine.”  Yet how can we be His if we were never first born to Him?  Like orphaned bear cubs, is there not a risk of us being alienated from the very One with whose family we have been placed?  An application of a far more powerful compound than Vicks VapoRub has made possible the acclimation, into the family of God, of those of us who by nature were not the children of God.  That ointment is grace.  It is the application of grace that produces indifference in the nostrils of God, and causes Him to accept us into His family, making no difference between us, and His eternally begotten Son, Jesus Christ.  Because of grace, God makes no difference between His children.  We are no more orphans, but sons and daughters of the Most High God.  Having been marked with His identity, we can be secure in our relationship with Him, as we live as testaments of His grace with each new day.  

Source:  Reader’s Digest, “Vicks VapoRub Cubs,” p. 146., circa 1985