Good Seeds devotional for January 20

“…until the appearing of our Lord Jesus Christ…He who is the blessed and only Sovereign, the King of kings, and Lord of lords, who alone possesses immortality and dwells in inapproachable light…To Him be honor and eternal dominion. Amen” (I Timothy 6:15-16).

“We Have No King but……”
“This day in the year 2009 the United States of America witnesses an historical event.” I always smile when someone declares a current event to be “historical.” Isn’t it up to history – what will be written in tomorrow’s history books – whether or not something or someone getting all of today’s attention deserves a place in history? Millions of us listened in on the Inaugural proceedings at noon today. Even as I joined the nation and the world in welcoming our new President Obama, I was saddened to hear the stifled boos of contempt directed at outgoing President Bush when his name was announced. Today was a microcosmic picture of one week in history, long ago: On Sunday the new king of a hurting nation was welcomed with unabashed accolades and praise. One week later He was stripped of His royalty, His dignity, His reputation – even His clothes – and was nailed to a cross to die the death of a common criminal. What’s the lesson here? That people are fickle? Yes, certainly. But there’s more. When Pilate, the governor of Judea, questioned Jesus, asking if He indeed considered Himself to be a king, the answer came quickly, “Yes, but my kingdom is not of this world.” In other words, "You, Pilate, and your king, Caesar, need not be threatened by my presence or power. I am King of the world in the sense that I own it, I made it, I care for it...because I love it; and I would never do anything to hurt it – in fact, I have come into it to save it.” But the people would have none of this, and the weakling ruler let them have their way. “And the rest,” as they say, “is history!” Fast forward to today: We now have a new president who is being lauded as some kind of wonderful worldwide savior. It’s scary to see so much faith put in a mortal man. I’m reminded of a poem we studied in high school, about a king of some now forgotten civilization who was lauded as God’s gift to the world, the answer to all its problems. Hundreds of years later a traveler crosses a lonely desert where he sees, protruding from the barren wasteland, two giant trunkless legs, and a shattered bust nearby, with this inscription: “My name is Ozmandias, king of kings. Look on my works, ye mighty, and despair!” The poem goes on, “Nothing beside remains. Round the decay of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare, the lone and level sands stretch far away.” What is the lesson? Simply this: we must finish the above sentence correctly, for only One King can fulfill the mission we so quickly assign to the wrong man.