New Shoes

                                                                        New Shoes

Shallow as it sounds, many people are enthusiastic about ‘new shoes’. Some consider a new pair of shoes as a necessity when they simply want to change outfits. Ask a teenager about a brand of athletic shoe and he quotes a price, who makes them, and where they are available for purchase. Ask a lady about what she intends to wear to a special event and you can be certain the pair of shoes to be worn will be discussed.

Sports participants know specific shoes are made for specific sports players: golf, bowling, running, and football shoes, to name a few. As with many other things people buy or collect, too much value is placed on the 'thing'.  Reality. We can only wear one pair of shoes at a time!

Headlines still occasionally surface about young people being killed for their shoes. What is this world coming to? Listen…if history repeats itself, it is coming to God’s judgment!  “Judgment over shoes”, you say? Take a look at Amos 2:6. It reads, “thus says the Lord: for three transgressions of Israel, and for four, I will not turn away my punishment thereof; because they sold the righteous for silver, and the poor for a pair of shoes.”

Words of an old Negro spiritual…”I got shoes, you got shoes, all God’s children got shoes.” I imagine the slaves singing these words found hope in Psalm 119:45-- ”I will walk about in freedom, for I have sought out your precepts.”  The shoes they sang about cannot be stolen, nor are they for sale. They are walking shoes for the highway of freedom, the journey with Christ. 

Isaiah 35:8 identifies this road, “And a highway will be there; it will be called the Way of Holiness. The unclean will not journey on it. It is for those who walk in that Way; wicked fools will not go about on it."

1 John 2:6 and 1 John 1:7  tells us, “Whoever claims to live in Him must walk as Jesus did. But if we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus, His Son, purifies us from all sin.”

The next time you want a new pair of shoes, think about the exclusive designer made ones you already possess, as a believer. They have been bought and paid for by the blood of Jesus; never too tight, no need for them to be broken in, never wear out, never go out of style; always the right color, better yet, they are suitable for any occasion. These shoes enable the redeemed to walk before the Lord, in the land of the living.

Proverbs 4:12 says, “When you walk, your steps will not be hampered; when you run, you will not stumble.”

“I got shoes,

You got shoes,

All God’s children got shoes.”