The Jesus I Want My Children to Know

             

When our children were small, we taught them that Jesus loved them. That he loved everyone. “Jesus loves the little children of the world.”

 

Now that they are adults, and they live in a harder and broader world, we want them to be assured that Jesus still loves everyone. He loves the people that others don’t care about, no matter their race, nationality, beliefs, disability—no matter what they’ve done or are doing. Jesus will still touch, will still reach out to, the one no one else will touch.

 

Jesus touched the man with leprosy.

 

Matthew 8:3: Jesus reached out his hand and touched the man. “I am willing,” he said. “Be clean!” Immediately he was cleansed of his leprosy.

 

In Luke 8, he gave peace to the man who was tortured by demons.

 

Verse 35: and the people went out to see what had happened. When they came to Jesus, they found the man from whom the demons had gone out, sitting at Jesus’ feet, dressed and in his right mind; and they were afraid.

 

In John 4, he offered salvation to the woman whom everyone else shunned.

 

Verse 10: Jesus answered her, “If you knew the gift of God and who it is that asks you for a drink, you would have asked him and he would have given you living water.”

 

In Matthew 15, Jesus had a conversation with, and granted the request of, the Greek woman his disciples wanted to send away.

 

Verse 28: Then Jesus said to her, “Woman, you have great faith! Your request is granted.” And her daughter was healed at that moment.

 

In John 8, the people wanted to stone the woman caught in adultery, but Jesus offered her a new life.

 

Verses 10-11: Jesus straightened up and asked her, “Woman, where are they? Has no one condemned you?”

 “No one, sir,” she said.

“Then neither do I condemn you,” Jesus declared. “Go now and leave your life of sin.”

 

John 5:24: “I tell you the truth, those who listen to my message and believe in God who sent me have eternal life. They will never be condemned for their sins, but they have already passed from death into life.”

 

        It has never been Jesus’ desire to condemn. Jesus, thank you that you always welcome me.