Emphasis Preaching Journal

To a first-century Hebrew, the cross made no sense at all. Anyone who was executed on a tree was accursed. How could God's Messiah die on a tree? What those ancient Hebrews and much of the world today still misses is the length to which God would go to communicate his love to sinful men and women. He came into the world to tell us he loved us. He came to tell us that our past sins are forgiven, that he was willing to bring us into his kingdom again if we will only want it. There was nowhere the Son of God would not go to tell us that, nothing he would not endure to tell us that, even if it meant an accursed death on a cross.

A daughter ran away from home, ran to the city, got involved in living a life of shame. Her mother, broken-hearted, went after her. She searched through all of the dives and bars looking for her. In every place she left a little snapshot of herself, taped onto the wall with a simple message, "I love you." "Please come home."

She could not find her daughter, but One day her daughter stumbled into one of these dives and happened to glimpse the photograph on the wall. She went over and read the message, "I love you." She remembered there was somebody who did care for her. There was somebody who loved her. She got the courage to turn and go back home into the arms of a mother ready to love and forgive and accept her home again. God has come to us, ready to love us and forgive us and accept us back into his family.