You’re heading for your own Red Carpet… and award

And the award goes to…

The New Green Deal was running in the red last night as the movie world parked their Prius and Tesla fleets, dialed-up their carbon footprints and rolled the limos toward the Dolby Theater on Hollywood Boulevard. All 3400 seats were full of self-congratulatory professionals from the entertainment industry, assembled for the 91st annual reenactment of the Academy Awards.

One of the four majors (EGOT: Emmy, Grammy, Oscar, Tony), it drew the big names from the Left Coast as they sat spell-bound for nearly four hours as 24 categories were highlighted with statues. They’re still counting the eyeballs, but 20-30 million people with little to do stayed home to watch…

My money is on the bigger event tonight at the Anaheim Convention Center. The Orange County Athletic Directors Association is hosting the dinner honoring the Athletes with Character. At each high school in the county (sixth largest in America), the Athletic Department nominates a male and female athlete who consistently manifests Trustworthiness, Responsibility, Caring, Respect, Fairness and Citizenship. They gain the agreement of the school’s administration, then submit the names to the OCADA. Tonight, these young men and women will be recognized for their character. (Disclosure: Cheri and I will be there watching as one of our grandsons, Houston Reese, receives that honor).

In Nature, it’s Survival of the Fittest. The pecking order in the wild is known as the Food Chain: at the nightly dinner table, someone is in the chair, and someone else is on the platter. Win/lose is life and death. In the bush, there’s no drive to succeed; it’s all about staying alive. The Grizzly Society holds no banquet to recognize Best Salmon Catching Technique at the Rapids; the Lions Club never hosts a luncheon to spotlight the lioness named as Female Director of the Year for gazelle hunts. The Award Season is clearly of human creation…

There is something in our essential DNA that points humans toward recognition. Evolution presumes that man is just one of Earth’s species, fortunate enough to avoid the saber-toothed pack and then hang around long enough to create the internet. The revelation of the way things really are (the Bible) tells us that man was made in the image of God, fell to the deception of the Devil, and awaits the ultimate Awards Ceremony where we – individually – will discover the ultimate value created by the investment of our life.

We make the Final Judgment a compelling element of the Gospel: John offers a literary postcard of the fateful moment when people who never said “yes” to the salvation offer by Jesus will be remanded to eternal custody in the Lake of Fire (read it for yourself: Revelation 20:11-15). Heaven’s courtroom is not a venue you need fear if you’ve experienced the gift of forgiveness and inclusion in the Lamb’s Book of Life (vs 15).

But there’s more: the staging at the Dolby Theater for the Oscars last night will look like a cheap carnival corner compared to the Bema: the Judgment Seat of Christ (see 2 Corinthians 5:10). When God rolls out the awards for Life Well Lived, the experience will be unlike any recognition event you’ve ever seen.

Gold trophies and bronze plaques won’t hold a candle to the immense endowment of Eternal Rewards. A dramatic portrayal of that future extravaganza captures the gravity of that future scene: The Bema is offered by TMPer Joe Mayers to groups and churches to make tomorrow’s moment more real. Click through and see the summation (or video): it’s far more important than Entertainment Tonight’s coverage of last night’s Red Carpet.

“For the Son of Man is going to come in his Father’s glory with his angels, and then he will reward each person according to what they have done.” (Jesus; Matthew 16:27).

The Oscars are the Little League; the Bemas are the Big League. Will you be nominated for any awards at the Bema?

Bob Shank