This is something I wrote last fall. It will probably be included in another devotional booklet, if I decide to print another one in the future ---
September 4, 2002
Recently I hard-boiled some eggs. Three I used for potato salad. The others, I would use in a couple more days; maybe for tuna salad sandwiches.
When the time came to make the sandwiches, I grabbed the two leftover eggs and begin cracking, peeling, and chopping. When I got to egg number two, the egg had cracked during the boiling process. Some of the inside was stuck to the outside shell. Worse, too much time had passed. It was spoiled. It looked bad and smelled worse! I couldn’t use it. It needed to be thrown away.
It seemed like God was showing me that this is how we are. We begin as "good eggs". Our shells aren’t cracked or broken. But too much time passes and the cracks of genetics, outside influences, and our own poor choices begin to show up. Eventually we are not only broken, we begin to spoil. What can be done with "rotting, spoiled people"?
That is why Jesus came into the world. He knew we would need Someone to save us from spoiling. He died to save us from becoming "rotten and unusable". He said if we would ask Him, we would be "remade". We could become new eggs with no cracks, no spoilage, and totally usable for this life and suitable for the world that is coming ahead. We have no more ability to build new shells around ourselves, than my egg had to make a new shell around itself.
As His "new eggs", our shells are protected on a daily basis. Jesus personally sees to it that cracks are sealed up and the fruit on the inside of us is fresh and usable for His purposes.
When we leave this life and sit before God’s throne and our "egg" from this life is reviewed, are we usable for His "tuna salad sandwiches and potato salad purposes" for eternity?
Or does God have to do what I did with my second egg…toss it out because there isn’t much that even He can do with a rotten egg?