In Max Lucado’s book No Wonder They Call Him Savior, he tells this story.
Longing to leave her poor Brazilian neighborhood, Christina wanted to see the world. Discontent at home only on a pallet on the floor, a washbasin, and a wood burning stove, she dreamed of a better life in the city.
One morning she ran away, breaking her mother’s heart. Her mother knew what life would be like for her young, attractive daughter, so Maria quickly packed to go find her daughter.
On her way to the bus stop, she went to a drugstore to get one last thing. Pictures. She sat in the photograph booth, closed the curtain, and spent all the money she had on pictures of herself
With her purse full of small black and white photos, she got on the next bus to Rio de Janeiro.
Maria knew Christina had no way of earning any money. She also knew that her daughter was too stubborn to give up. Maria began her search. Bars, hotels, nightclubs, any place with the reputation for street walkers or prostitutes.
She went to all of them. And at each one she left her picture—taped to a bathroom mirror, tacked to a hotel bulletin board, or fastened to a corner phone booth. And on the back of each photo she wrote a note.
It wasn’t long before Maria’s money and pictures ran out, and Maria had to go home. The tired mother cried as the bus began its long journey back to her small village.
A few weeks later, Christina was coming down the stairs in a seedy hotel. Her young face was tired. Her brown eyes no longer danced with youth but spoke of pain and fear. Her laugher was broken. Her dream had become a nightmare.
A thousand times she had longed to trade all those countless beds for her secure pallet. And yet the little village seemed so far away.
As she reached the bottom of the stairs, her eyes noticed a familiar face. She looked again, and there on the lobby mirror was a small picture of her mother. Christina’s eyes burned and her throat tightened as she walked across the room and removed the small photo.
Written on the back was this message: “Whatever you have done, whatever you have become, and it doesn’t matter. Please come home.”
And Christina went home.
Jesus Christ is the same way…He wants us to come home…It doesn’t matter what we’ve become…We can always go home to Him.
Good evening, my name is Rev. Benny Anthony, and the title of this talk is “God Loves You.”
There are many signs of God’s love all around us if we just take the time to look for them.
First, there’s God’s creation. This is an overflowing of God’s love. The Creator is present to us in the wonder and beauty of His creation. We are made as free beings to share God’s glory and purpose according to Psalm 8. Yet almost from the beginning people used free will to ignore God rather than to have a relationship with Him. Take the account of the Adam and Eve in Genesis 3—4. They used their free will to disobey God and literally ate themselves out of house and home.
The Bible is a great love story—the story of God’s love for humanity despite our sin. Throughout the Old Testament we hear God repeatedly inviting us to a covenant relationship with Him—a mutual relationship of love.
Through Jesus Christ, God offers us this transforming relationship. Romans 12:1-2 tells us to offer ourselves as a living sacrifice to God, dedicated to His service and pleasing to Him. God also tells us in these verses not to be conformed to the standards of the world. In other words, “Don’t follow the crowd.” We are to let God completely change us inwardly and then we’ll know what God’s will for us will be.
God offers us a relationship through grace. God doesn’t offer us things, but He offers us a relationship of genuine self-giving. We call this offer of friendship grace (something freely given but not deserved or worked for). God pursues us throughout our lives (sort of like Christina’s mother pursued her). If we want to get theological…we call this Prevenient grace…grace that comes before.
God’s grace comes from His unconditional love. That is what we call justifying grace. We can’t make ourselves right with God on our own, only by God’s grace through faith—faith in God’s unqualified love toward us through Jesus Christ.
This means that God loves us just like we are, not for how good or holy we can be. Even when we feel unacceptable, God accepts us. Even when we fail God, He forgives us and is ready to give us another chance. Even when we see no future for ourselves, God prepares a way, opening the future in ways that we can’t imagine.
There are many reasons why people ignore God’s love. Many people don’t know about God’s offer of a life-giving relationship. Many people have been taught misleading images of God.
Most people like to be in control of their own lives, their own needs, and their own happiness. Trusting God with all that is pretty scary. We’d rather trust ourselves.
The Bible tells us in Psalm 49:6 that we have the freedom to see what we want and go for it without listening to the wisdom of God but let me tell you from experience…that’s not the way to go.
There are those people who have doubts about God. They wonder if God is just a figment of their imagination. They wonder if God is trustworthy.
Pressure from others is another reason people ignore God. We tend to go with the flow and let our friends decide what we think. TV, movies, or music stars try to show us that people of faith (Christians) are not cool. If we say yes to God we could be saying no to other activities.
What are the results of ignoring God’s love? I think one of the main things is that empty feeling that we all sometimes experience. It’s like we have a hole in our soul and we mistakenly think we can fill that space with more stuff, more popularity, more “feel-good” experiences. But the hole just keeps getting bigger, and like Adam and Eve, we look for ways to hide from God and even from ourselves.
Apart from God I think we are like fresh cut flowers. They soon wither and dry up. Cut off from God, we lose our inner joy and love for living that God gives us…and we too can wither and dry up. We feel sorry for ourselves…you know that pity party we so enjoy…we get angry at the world for our troubles, and we blame others for the way we feel.
How can we accept this love relationship that God offers us? We can begin by choosing to be open to God. Believing that God is. Open yourself to the possibility. Live these three days as though God is real.
Believe that God communicates. The Bible’s message is that God speaks. Find out if that is true. Experiment by listening throughout these three days to what God is saying to you.
Listen to other Christians, their experiences of God and struggles with faith. Notice the ways God’s gets people’s attention. (TELL ABOUT CAR ACCIDENT HERE)
Believe that God is still there, waiting to hear from you. We can’t ignore God forever, God searches us out. God craves for relationship with us. God wants to restore the connection. God wants to assure us that we are His children.
You can accept this relationship by trusting that God has a great purpose for your life. Think about God’s blessings in your life. God has started something good in you, and now He wants to complete it.
Receive the message being personally delivered to you these three days; God wants a relationship with you.
Imagine what your life would be like if you accepted God’s love. What would you hope to get? What one thing would you be able to let go of?
Saying yes to God is an act of faith. It’s deciding to offer your life to God—to put your life and your future in God’s hands.
Conversion (a change of life style) begins the moment you say yes to God. Conversion is allowing God’s love and purpose to turn your life around, to redirect yourself. (GIVE EXAMPLE OF DRIVING CAR)
In closing, in the story of Adam and Eve’s denying God, Adam and Eve hid from God. They are naked, afraid, and ashamed. They know they have separated themselves from their Maker’s love.
But God searches them out with great love and calls them by name: “Adam and Eve where are you? I want a relationship with you.” God is seeking us and calling our names as well, saying, (CALL SOME NAMES AND SAY, “WHERE ARE YOU?”)
God invites you to say yes to the offer of a relationship. What will be your response?
JESUS LOVES YOU AND SO DO I.
