“Am I A Mutt?”

“For consider your calling,
brothers: not many of you
were wise according to worldly standards, not many were powerful, not
many were of noble birth” (1 Corinthians 1:26). “To the praise of the
glory of His grace, by which He made us accepted in the Beloved”
(Ephesians 1:6). “Accept one another, then, just as Christ accepted
you, in order to bring praise to God” (Romans 15:7).

We often mention
our two dogs.  Roxie
will be 14 this fall (on the right in a
Valentine photo Ester staged – you can see how happy they were about
it). She has slowed
down quite a bit since she’s in her 90’s (using the traditional formula
of one human year being seven dog years). 
Mollie, our border collie mix, is now seven but shows no signs of
slowing down. She happens to be very smart and athletic, at least she
often out-smarts us.

Our dogs did not come from a pet shop, have no pedigree and are
certainly not registered. Roxie had a very rough start in life, having
been rescued from an abusive setting, but has been a wonderful pet.
Mollie came from the shelter (AKA dog pound) having been dropped off
with a litter of unwanted puppies. However she
has no esteem problems at all.

Today I recall an experience we had when we lived in New England about
twenty years ago. We walked by a fenced yard,
day after day, on the way to Ester’s school and passed a litter of mangy-looking pups kept in a squalid backyard. One
of the pups always ran up to the fence and gave
us the puppy look that steals even the hardest of hearts so we couldn’t
resist.

We named her Penny. People
often asked what kind of puppy she was. We’d respond, “She’s just a
mutt” since we really didn’t know.

One afternoon I took a walk with Ester who was leading Penny on a
leash. She was about eight at the time when she suddenly stopped,
looked up at me and asked inquisitively: “Daddy, am I a mutt?”

This got me to thinking and please read my thought all the way through!
You know, in a sense she is a mutt. She was born in Guatemala and
immediately
taken to an orphanage. Her birth mother was unable to care for
her and we have no history of the birth father.  She came to us at
three months of age dying of congenital heart disease and spent the
next three months in a major medical center all the while isolated from
other patients because she had scabies and salmonella in her blood.
She’s had many heart surgeries and many heart catheterizations, three
pacemakers and actually more overcomings than could be listed in this
writing.

A mutt is defined as a dog that is a mix of usually undetermined
breeds. Interestingly, in the human world, it can also mean an
“insignificant
person”. Well that’s as other humans may tend to evaluate but with God
there is no
insignificant person. But “mutt” can also be used to describe a person
who may not know their background or have a rather ordinary background,
certainly not noble, elite or as they use in Boston, “blue blood”.

Paul asked the Corinthians to “Consider
your calling, brothers: not many of you were wise according to worldly
standards, not many were powerful, not many were of noble birth.”
We have a feeling that this describes most people reading this!

Let me be somewhat blunt and ask you, “Are you a mutt?” Don’t be
insulted! Think of where you’ve come from, spiritually speaking,
and your acceptance into God’s family. Sure, many come from
“good” families and that is such a blessing. But undoubtedly many
others, like Ester, came into this world under very difficult
circumstances and so many others come from homes far from ideal.

Consider this single phrase in our second daily Scripture, “He made us accepted in the Beloved.”

What a glorious truth! We’ve been accepted in the Beloved and we
are a part of His family. Whether we were born into the most proper of
families by this world’s standards, we were still born into sin, thus
we
were born with the sin nature – everyone of us. Only through Christ’s
redemption
are we accepted into God’s family and admitted entry into heaven.
This glorious transition cannot be earned, purchased or inherited, for
it is made possible entirely by His marvelous grace!

Be encouraged today,

Stephen & Brooksyne Weber