TO CHEW ON: "But when the kindness and love of God our Savior appeared, he saved us, not because of righteous things we had done, but because of his mercy." Titus 3:4,5
Who is the worst person you’ve ever heard of? What did they do that made them so bad?
We may think of some people, like mass murderers or violent thieves as beyond help. People may say things about them like, “Put them in jail and throw away the key. That’s the best they deserve.”
This may be true. But then, none of us deserve any better as far as God is concerned. For though you and I may not have done really big bad things, we have sinned. And the punishment for our sin is death. All the good things we could ever do are not enough to earn God’s pardon and to make us His friends.
But He doesn’t save us and make us His friends because we’re good. Neither does He leave us out because we’re bad. God accepts each person who comes to Him. This is not because of what we have or haven’t done. Rather it’s because His death paid the price for our sin. His love is big enough to love even the worst person.
"The Good Shepherd" by William Dyce, 1856MORE: Pray
Do you know someone who does bad things? Talk to God about that person regularly. God loves them and can save and change them.
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Those who cleanse themselves from the latter will be instruments for special purposes, made holy, useful to the Master and prepared to do any good work.
2 comments:
This is such a great message! We all like to compare ourselves in the context of our neighbors and we feel that as long as I'm doing a little better than "that guy," then I'm doing alright. Most of us can always find someone who is more sinful than ourselves which makes it easy to justify not striving toward righteousness. How good it is to communicate to our kids that sin is sin and we're all fallen, but God's grace is sufficient for my sin no matter how great. What a great lesson for Kids Church. Thanks for sharing it here!
Thanks, Kenny! I appreciate you reading and your thoughts.
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