One morning about eight years ago, I woke up to find the magnolia trees along the driveway generously graced with toilet paper from top to bottom. Somebody had spent quite a bit of time and money doing a wonderful TP job. In fact, I coined it the best TP job in the history of Clark County. It looked like a white toilet paper fairyland. It was kind of beautifully unique, waving in the gentle breeze. I needed to remove it before the upcoming rain or it would be plastered to the leaves. I duct taped a small propane torch on the end of a long wooden fabricated pole and held it in the top of the trees to ignite and burn the paper away. With that process of southern rigging, I was able to clean it up. I never did find out who did it or why they did it. Perhaps they did not like my choice of political candidate whose name was on the sign I had in the front yard. Maybe they did not like my “treat” so they felt like they had to “trick” me.
In the spiritual realm there is a “treat” of peace and joy, having our sins taken away by faith in the blood of Jesus. This is for an abundant life now, and a secure eternal future in heaven if we continue in that faith and righteousness. The “trick” of sin is that just past the veil of serenity that we know as this life, there lays a vicious, overpowering eternal reality of evil that is much bigger and stronger than we realize. The opiate of the pleasure of sin for a season will give us a false hope that is not based on truth that will set us up for the “trick.” The truth is that we will each stand before absolute truth and righteousness. We won’t give account for our best buddy or our brother or our sister. We will each give account to God. Jesus is the refuge and he is the source of true peace and happiness in this life and beyond. There is no “trick” about him. He is eternal life and with him, we are truly “better off” and “in a better place” with the last breath that we take. With Jesus, those are not just empty clichés spoken over everybody and anybody who dies. It is an eternal truth based on the faithfulness of God himself. This is God’s “good news treat” for each of us today.