Jones' Farm

 

The first job that I had was working at Jones’ Farm picking tomatoes.  Oh, I had several lawnmowing jobs before that, but picking tomatoes was my first hourly job.  My mother would drive my brother and me out to the field and help us pick for a while.  She would come back at lunch and then again near quitting time and pick a little more with us.  We got paid 10¢ for a 5/8-bushel basket.  Not very much by today’s standard.  But at the end of the week, when I got my check, I thought that I was rich!  I opened a savings account at the bank in Bel Air and put my check in every week.  Hey, the Bible talks about wages, but not the kind that I enjoyed.  Paul said in the first half of Romans 6:23, “For the wages of sin is death …”  That’s the bad part of the verse.  We live our lives in sin and when we die, we get the wages that we rightly deserve: we get death and separation from God in a dark, painful eternity.  But the good news is found in the second part of that same verse: “…but the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.”  God withholds the punishment that we rightfully deserve and has put it upon Jesus on the cross of Calvary.  Jesus took our punishment and in return gives us His eternal life!  What a wonderful exchange!  God doesn’t give us what we deserve (eternal punishment) but gives us what we don’t deserve (the gift of eternal life).  Hey, don’t settle for the wages of death; accept the gift of salvation.  It’s free!