Horsemeat anyone?

Image taken by Trapper49 on www.kozzi.com

The following extract is from the BBC News website: ‘Tesco have used full-page adverts in national newspapers to apologise for selling burgers in the UK that were found to contain 29% horsemeat. Traces of horse DNA were also detected by the Food Standards Agency of Ireland in products sold by Iceland, Lidl, Aldi and Dunnes. But a beefburger rarely contains 100% beef. The Food Standards Agency (FSA) has two classifications for burger products - standard and economy. A standard beefburger can only be classified as such if it comprises a minimum of 62% beef. The percentages take a tumble when it comes to economy or "value" burger products’.

What does this mean? One thing would seem to be the need to find cheap food. Cash-strapped families, and individuals, are always trying to find the elusive ‘bargain’ to try and make their limited resources go that little bit further. So, why the furore? Why has the government insisted on food testing and regular reports in the news about their latest finding? I suspect one of the main reasons is that feeling that we have all been deceived. We have been told something when the reality is radically different. What we thought we were buying and eating is not all beef but contains some horse!

Being deceived is not just a matter of horsemeat. Many people will speak with emotion about the partner that deceived them. Others will tell you of ‘scams’ perpetrated by unscrupulous criminals who prey upon the vulnerable. It seems true to say that ‘you can fool some of the people all the time’. Humanists would say, ‘There is probably no god so enjoy life’. Christians would indicate that this is a deception, one that could have disastrous consequences for the life beyond this one.

What about you? The story is told of the atheist heckler who shouted at a preacher on Hyde Park Corner. The preacher simply said, ‘If you are right and there is no God and no life beyond this one, what have I lost? However, if I am right and there is a God, whom you have rejected and despised in the person of His Son Jesus Christ, what have you lost?’ This is an important question. Jesus Christ died upon a Roman cross, was buried, and rose again the third day to provide a full and free salvation for sinners like me (and you!). Are you one of the deceived who follow the common theory that there is no God, no one to whom we must answer? Have you been deceived?

An Estimate

It was in the relatively early hours of the morning quite recently that I was awoken by an accident right outside our house. In fact, the driver had lost control of his vehicle, knocked down part of our wall and then ploughed into the drive posts and knocked them down. It was quite a mess and the car looked a wreck. Fortunately, the driver wasn't badly hurt but was taken by ambulance to hospital just to make sure. Now we have the task of getting someone to rebuild the damaged wall and replace the posts at the ends of the wall. 'Get an estimate from a builder, and submit it to the insurers', we have been told.

This got me thinking. What is an estimate? It's not exact but it is intended to give us a rough idea of what it will cost to get things repaired and restored. An expert eye will be able to give us a figure from which we can get the go-ahead for things to be fixed.

If we were asked to put an estimate on human life, what might we say? What is a life worth? Reading in the news of a bungled murder by two people who had been paid to kill someone, I wondered what value they had put upon the life of their potential victim. What is our life worth? The value will change, depending on who you ask. I would expect my family to put a higher price on my life than my employers! However, the gospel (the message of the Bible) tells us that the highest price placed upon a human life is that which God has placed. God's love for each one of us caused Him to give His only Son to die upon a Roman cross outside Jerusalem. The reason? It was because God loved us, valued us so highly, that He was prepared to punish His Son for our sin and guilt that we might go free.

We cannot measure the value of that tremendous gift of God's love. We cannot measure the price that the Lord Jesus Christ, God's Son, had to pay to remove the penalty that we would have to pay on account of our sin. But the question that has to be asked is this, 'Have you accepted Jesus Christ as your Saviour?' Are you prepared to acknowledge and accept the estimate of value God has put upon your life? Sadly, for some, life is cheap. Many live life for the present and ignore the price that God was willing to pay to secure your future with Him. What about you?