CHILDREN are fond of pets. I remember well when I was a boy that my great ambition was to have a pair of white rabbits with red eyes. Then one day father gave my brother and me some money to purchase a pair, and that happy evening neither of us could sleep for joy but lay awake for hours thinking about our two rabbits with the red eyes.
A little girl was equally happy when she was given a little kitten for a pet. Her heart was filled with delight and every spare moment was spent in playing with it. But alas, for the pleasures of this earth! The little pet took sick and died, and her joy was changed to sadness.
But by and by another and far dearer pet was given, a baby brother, and now her little heart overflowed with happiness. With what joy she bent over the tiny little thing as it lay sleeping in its cradle! How she laughed when baby crowed and how delighted she was when Mother let her take care of him for a little while. But how uncertain are earth's most precious treasures! Again death stepped in and her dear little brother died. All her joy vanished; the mirth of the house was gone. With a heart overflowing with sorrow the sobbing child exclaimed to her weeping mother, "Oh Mother, Mother, GIVE ME SOMETHING TO LOVE THAT WILL NEVER DIE."
Dear children, what this dear child so pathetically asked from her mother is the very thing which God has given to man. He has given us Someone to love who can never die; "For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in Him should not perish but have everlasting life." And that blessed Son, having died the just for the unjust that He might bring us to God, was raised up from among the dead by the glory of the Father and has entered into the power of an endless life. Here, then, is SOMEONE to love who can never die, and One who will never change through all eternity.
But it is not a gift which we can see with our eyes or handle with our hands, for Christ who once dwelt on earth and led a life of sorrow, which ended in the shameful death on the Cross, now dwells in heaven at the right hand of God; and so we can only know Him by faith.
Dear young reader, do you have this Someone to love who can never die?
Messages of the Love of God 7/27/1958