I went to Starbucks this morning to have my quiet time. I needed to work on the Christianity Explored assignment for next week's class. As the morning rush began, I headed home. As I was leaving, a woman from our leasing company was looking at herself in the window before coming in. "Rough night?", I asked with a laugh. She blew through a shortened version of her evening and how she wasn't really feeling awake and alive at the moment. Then, she saw the Bible in my hand.
"You read the Bible?", she asked quizzically. "Like all the time?"
"Yes," I said with a chuckle.
"And here I am saying 'f' every other word and being a total hot mess."
"No worries," I say with a smile, "Jesus loves a hot mess."
It's a story repeated over and over again in the Bible. He loved the unlovable. The sinners. "On hearing this, Jesus said to them, 'It is not the healthy who need a doctor, but the sick. I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners.'" (Mark 2:17). We are all sinners, but some were called out, banished, mocked, stoned or killed for their sins. The "law" was used to punish. Jesus came to set us free from ourselves and our sin. All we have to do is choose.
Jesus knows our hearts. He knows us even in the dark and hidden places of our being. He knows because He was there in the beginning: "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God." (John 1:1, NIV). He knows us and assures us we are valuable to Him: "Indeed, the very hairs of your head are all numbered. Don't be afraid; you are worth more than many sparrows." (Luke 12:7) The sparrows were sold cheaply, but the price paid for us was His life. Now, that is a deep, forever love. The kind available to those growing in the good soil as well as those still living as a hot mess.
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