I remember the time when a youth group while on a mission trip found a little abandoned puppy looking for scraps at the motel where we were staying. They had pity and compassion on the little puppy and tried to find out if there was an owner. The hotel people said, “no” and that the puppy was just a nuisance.
The little tan puppy had a potbelly from eating garbage and had fleas, ticks and needed a bath. All of that did not deter the youth group from loving and wanting to care for him. Some of them had me go and get flea powder and dog food while the others gave him a sweet smelling bath. One of the girls even found a red ribbon to tie around his neck.
One thing I noticed, the little puppy sure enjoyed all that attention.
That puppy reminded me of something in the Bible.
God does not just love us when we look our best; it is really just a matter of His choosing to love us not because we are worthy of, or nice enough, or good enough.
Romans 5:8 but God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.
God has a loving nature, and He chooses to not reject us just because we are sinners.
1 John 4:15-16 Whoever confesses that Jesus is the Son of God, God abides in him, and he in God. 16 So we have come to know and to believe the love that God has for us. God is love, and whoever abides in love abides in God, and God abides in him.
He wants to clean us up and make us His possession, to love on, care for and be with Him forever.
John 3:16 For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life.
1 Peter 2:9-10 But you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for his own possession, that you may proclaim the excellencies of him who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light. 10 Once you were not a people, but now you are God's people; once you had not received mercy, but now you have received mercy.
1 John 3:1-3 See what kind of love the Father has given to us, that we should be called children of God; and so we are. The reason why the world does not know us is that it did not know him. 2 Beloved, we are God's children now, and what we will be has not yet appeared; but we know that when he appears we shall be like him, because we shall see him as he is. 3 And everyone who thus hopes in him purifies himself as he is pure.
See you in Church next Sunday.