Washington Conference of Seventh-day Adventists

By Doug Bing, Washington Conference president

It is always a point of curiosity when you exit a store and find three police cars all pulled up and parked erratically right by the door of the store.

This was a recent scene my wife and I encountered at a storefront. In addition to the police officers, we witnessed three store security personnel and three individuals standing by a car. One of the individuals was standing there in handcuffs…smiling and chatty.

What struck me the most was how happy the person in handcuffs was. He was busily chatting with the officer closest to him and they were laughing together about something.

As I drew closer to them and my own car, I started to hear more of the conversation. One officer was talking to the security man who said they had left the store without paying. The officer responded by saying, “Let’s go in and look at the tape.”

I also heard the individual in cuffs say, “I am not worried, I am not upset, please look at the tape.” Another officer responded by saying they would get to the bottom of this situation. They then went about chatting, laughing and talking about other things.

I don’t know how it all ended as we drove away. Yet I was struck by the happy-in-handcuffs individual. He was confident and not perturbed in the least. He was confident in what was on the tape and that it would exonerate what ever the accusation was being made against him.

In Ecclesiastes 12:13,14 it states:

Solomon was basically saying that followers of God can be confident, happy and unafraid because there is the tape that anyone will be able to see. When that tape is reviewed of the followers of Jesus they will see that each one in the kingdom of heaven has the covering of the sacrifice of Jesus that covers anything that may be on the tape.

Our role as we spiritually grow each day is to love God with all our hearts and what ever works we have will be judged.

Those who think they are working their way to heaven will find that when their works are judged they fall short. Those who lean fully on Jesus will find that it is His works that comes through every time.

Let us be a confident and happy as the happy-in-handcuffs man who just wanted the officers to see the tape. Our tape is filled with Jesus.