Today’s Scripture: 1 Thessalonians 4:1-11
How great is the love the Father has lavished on us, that we should be called children of God! – 1 John 3:1
Bible scholars and theologians usually list the attributes of God under two headings: His natural attributes and His moral attributes.
His natural attributes tell us of a God who is all-knowing, all-powerful, ever-present, eternal. His moral attributes tell us of a God who is holy, righteous, faithful, full of mercy and kindness, and who is love. To contemplate any one of these attributes by itself staggers us. But it is His undying love for us that thrills our hearts.
Some years ago my wife and I were visiting the home of friends who live in Oklahoma City. We arrived midafternoon, and my wife went into the living room to join a ladies’ Bible study. I went into the back bedroom to prepare a message I was to give that night at a church banquet.
Some of the ladies had brought their children, who were playing just outside my window. A little boy named Jimmy shouted at a little girl, calling her names. “You’re a dummy,” he said. “You’re nothing but a silly dummy. And you’re ugly. And I don’t like you, you dummy.”
Suddenly I heard the little girl say with a sweet little voice, “Jimmy, I love you.”
I thought, You what!? You love him? After all those cruel names he called you?
And then it occurred to me, God says the same thing to us, all the time. People all over the world carve out images of God in the form of a snake or an ox or a dog, and say, in effect, “God, you are nothing but a dog. You’re a snake. You’re a dumb ox.” And God looks down from His throne in heaven and reaches out to them in mercy and kindness and says, “I love you.”
Prayer
Lord, You are absolute power and absolute holiness, yet You love me–though I am totally unlovable–with absolute love. Amen.
To Ponder
“For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life” (John 3:16).
DAILY DEVOTIONS, NEWS AND INFORMATION 