Janet and I love to watch the various dog shows on television. For example, the Westminster Dog Show is quite famous and the dog that wins “Best in Show” has a changed life. Because celebrity status is just around the corner and these dogs are able to make the rounds of the morning shows with their owners and handlers, watching their value increase as they are sought after by breeders to improve their own lines of dogs. We always seem to cheer for the Doberman entrants and every now and then, some dog we were cheering for takes away a category win and makes it to the finals.
Imagine our surprise when we were channel surfing recently and came across a new kind of dog show. This one, primarily sponsored by Petco and televised on the Hallmark Channel, was called “Best in Rescue.” It was very similar in format to the typical shows that we have watched for years. The big difference was that all the dogs in the various categories of competition had to be rescue animals. While some of them were purebred dogs, most of them were mixed breeds and they came in every shape, color and size.
The categories were quite interesting – best fetch, best snoring, best rear end wiggle, best couch potato, best underbite and many other humorous competitive categories. The whole show pressed the overwhelming need to help these animals through adoption and recognizing the idea that the pet population relies on us to adopt and not shop for expensive pets.
We were very impressed with the entire production. Granted, there were certain competitions that were kind of campy, but they sure got the point across that the evening was all about rescued animals. I want to commend Petco for their donation of $25K to the overall winner of the show and $5K to the winner of each of the 10 categories that were judged. the Best in Rescue was a twelve year old Retriever – it was well deserved.
It didn’t take me long to realize that we are much like those dogs that need to be rescued. We are not perfect in our humanness and God sent His Son to earth to “rescue” us. He offered us the possibility of eternal life – just by believing the claim of Jesus that he was the Messiah and would reign forever. Of course, Jesus always did the will of His Father and His mission was to save us by making an atoning blood sacrifice for all mankind. This work was completed on the cross at Calvary.
Certainly, there were times that Jesus would have liked having the task removed from His shoulders, but it was not to be. God, the Father, knew that the world needed to be rescued – and the sacrifice of Jesus was the way for that to happen.
Our verse for this evening highlights the fact that Jesus came to save us, to rescue us, from eternal separation from God. The apostle John tells us, in John 3:17, “For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him.” What a remarkable declaration! Jesus, and His Father, are definitely the “Best in Rescue” for all eternity.
My encouragement this evening is that God loves us enough to want us to spend eternity with Him. And that can only happen after we are rescued by His Son, Jesus. My prayer is that we all realize that we each have a choice to accept the gift of eternal life. We just have to be willing to be saved by Jesus, the ultimate King who can offer us life altering salvation. Have a great day in the Lord, grace and peace…