Mr. Haley owned a pet store. One day, when he was visiting Florida, he bought a large fish to take back to his store. He put the fish, called a grouper, in the large tank in the store’s front window. There were other interesting and unusual fish in the tank, but this new fish was the largest. It was about a foot long and weighed three pounds.
The grouper soon grew fat on the five pounds of chopped fish that Mr. Haley fed it every other day. The fish didn’t move around much; it just stayed at the bottom of the tank. Mr. Haley decided that it was lazy. This made him think of a funny name for the fish — Flazey — short for fat and lazy.
Flazey soon became a favorite. Customers would stand at the tank watching it, often talking about how fast the fish
was growing.
Some weeks later, Mr. Haley noticed that a few of the unusual and expensive tropical fish he used to have in that tank were gone. He wondered who could be taking them out of the tank without his knowing it. He kept close watch, but more of his expensive fish disappeared.
Then one day the mystery was solved. As he stood watching Flazey, suddenly one of his tropical fish, worth several hundred dollars, disappeared down its throat! His favorite and popular pet was the thief!
Mr. Haley needed to find a way to stop Flazey from destroying more of his expensive fish. Since so many people, including himself, had grown fond of the grouper, he did not want to destroy it.
Mr. Haley’s hard question of what to do with Flazey is a little picture of God’s hard question of what to do with sinners and their sins. God loves sinners, but He hates their sins. It would have been fair and just if God had decided to destroy us because of our sins. That is what we deserve. But God’s love for us is so great that instead of destroying us, He made a way so that He could save us. He punished Another for our sins, His only Son, so that sinners, who deserve punishment from God, could be saved. God’s very own Son “was ... offered to bear the sins of many” (Hebrews 9:2828So Christ was once offered to bear the sins of many; and unto them that look for him shall he appear the second time without sin unto salvation. (Hebrews 9:28)).
Word got around of Mr. Haley’s difficult decision of what to do about Flazey. Mr. Haley’s customers kindly solved his problem. They collected money and bought him a plane ticket to Florida. Mr. Haley and Flazey flew back to Florida where Mr. Haley could put her safely back into the ocean where she came from.
It was so kind of those people to do that. But God’s kindness is so much greater. He gave His precious Son, the Lord Jesus Christ, to die to pay for our sins. Now God offers you forgiveness of all your sins and eternal life as a free gift. Come to Him to receive this wonderful gift — today!
Messages of God’s Love 10/31/2021