Daily Devotionals

Chip Shots from the Ruff of Life

Devotional: September 26th

My dad's brother, my uncle Orlyn Kelly, used to collect coins. He had a rather substantial collection of coins at the time of his death several years ago. He had worked hard to put that collection together, often spending hours searching through millions of coins just to find one or two that fit what he was looking for. Dad kind of collected coins, too. But his were more along the lines of the newly minted items like the Bicentennial and Man on the Moon items.

My wife thinks I have collected too many different things. I have a nice little private library, a collection of lighthouses and related items, a golf ball collection of balls from courses I have played, a collection of Jeff Gordon memorabilia, a lot of Ohio State University items, a modest number of commemorative church plates, a smattering of belt buckles, and, true to my roots, a collection of the state quarters from their inception right on up to the Oregon quarter and all in both the Philadelphia and Denver mints. But I'm not a hardcore collector who would pay whatever is needed to obtain a collectible.

There are those whose desire for the unique, or just the chance to be the first to have something, leads them to spend rather exorbitant amounts of cash for their desired privilege. Bidding on eBay hit $265 for a dozen golf balls early in 2003. The balls were not of a historic nature. In fact, they had yet to be removed from their sleeves and hit. They were brand new Titleist ProV1x that the sellers had obtained earlier at PGA Tour pro-am events. Once the balls were released for nationwide consumption they were sold for less than $50 a dozen.

The strangest investment like that was a guy who was willing to sell his friend's freedom and life. He found a buyer and they settled on an agreeable price. The buyers were trying their best to prevent this one person from continuing to make a collection which threatened the influence of the buyers. What was the collection? Followers. Who were the buyers? The chief priests of Israel. Who was receiving the money? Judas Iscariot. Whose freedom and life were being forfeited? The Lord Jesus Christ.

"Then one of the twelve, called Judas Iscariot, went to the chief priests and said, 'What are you willing to give me if I deliver Him to you?' And they counted out to him thirty pieces of silver. So from that time he sought opportunity to betray Him." Matthew 26:14-16 The thirty pieces of silver was not exactly a king's ransom. But, the early Sunday tee time, the angry words, the Sunday morning at the lake, the statement born of prejudice and the decision to sleep in just one Sunday don't seem to be that big of a deal. We're not kissing up to Jesus. Either we serve Him as His body or we don't. The collection of betrayers is bought fairly cheaply.