Emphasis Preaching Journal

He was walking by the highway carrying a broomstick and a bag. He was picking up trash. He speared a styrofoam cup and deftly swept it off the end of the stick and into the bag. He was taking part in the congregation's service project: Adopt-a-highway. Clean up a few miles of state highway and you get a highway sign proclaiming your group's name at each end of your stretch of road. He was glad for the publicity, but more than that, for the pride in the community and the savings on highway tax money. He paused to admire some trees. "The world is a beautiful gift of God," he thought. "Always some who insist on messing it up." He skewered an aluminum can and put it in a separate bag, inside the first. Later it would be separated out for recycling. That would put a little extra money in the treasury, but that was not the reason for the recycling. They recycled because it was the right thing to do. "People can be so messy," he thought as he gathered six beer bottles so close together they must have come from the same six-
pack. One was broken, and he paused to put on gloves he carried in his pocket for just this purpose. Soon he'd have to start a new bag. "Taking away all the trash. Removing the old junk from where it shouldn't be in the first place," he thought. "Isn't that what expiation is?" he mused. "Isn't that what Jesus does? Takes away the old, dead sin and leaves a beautiful, saved person where that used to be?" -- Mosley