True Story - "My sister only responds to love."

A mother, her nine-year-old daughter and her three-year-old daughter were in the grocery store. The mother went around the corner of the isle and left her girls to follow after. The mother was not all that concerned as the girls usually followed along shortly. This time however, the older girl began to look at something or other and the younger girl, who happened to have Down’s Syndrom started taking some jars of pickles off the shelf. An employee saw the girls and in a rather sharp tone told the younger girl to put the jars back. The little girl crumpled to the floor in a flood of tears. Her older sister, who saw and heard what happened, went over to her little sister and whispered something in her ear. The little girl immediately picked up the jars and returned them to where they belonged. Then, turning to the somewhat flustered employee, the nine-year-old said, “My sister only responds to love.”

This isn’t just a cool story. And it doesn’t just describe that little girl. It describes all of us, doesn’t it? We all respond to love. We all long to be loved. We all, every single one us crave love.

That is why those of us who have become Christians have responded to the call of Jesus. The Bible explains it this way, “We love Jesus because He first loved us.” It's as though one day, as we turned a corner of life, we ran smack into a wall of Love; a wall that we couldn’t walk around or climb over. We could either accept the wall of Jesus’ Love, or reject that Love and walk the other way. Whatever we chose we could no longer continue on in ignorance of something wonderful.

Yet who of us, when we recognise genuine love walk away from something like that? We might not trust it. We might not believe that it’s for us. We might not even think that we’d be better enjoying THAT particular love. But we all search for genuine love.

The fact is, Jesus loves you. He proved it by dying for you. He longs to heal you and to hold you and to bring you safely home. He hates the sin that is destroying your life. He hates it so much that some day He is going to eliminate sin from existence. Jesus says, “I take no joy in the death of the wicked.”

The wise choice of course is to walk away from sin and to walk toward Love. Not everyone makes that choice, but you can. “Now is the time of God’s favour. Now is the day of salvation.” Respond to Love and Love will respond to you.