A little girl was sitting one Sunday night upon her father’s knee talking about the Lord Jesus Christ. Somehow they at last began to speak of dying. To die and go to heaven is not the proper hope of the believer, but rather the coming of the Lord. It is that that the believer in Christ is to look for, and it is that which is called “the blessed hope.” But, although death is not what the Christian is to expect, it so happened that this little child and her father got to talking about it, and at last the father said,
“Would you like to die, and go to be there Jesus is?”
“Yes, I should,” replied the child.
“What! and leave your father and mother here?”
“I should like you all to go with me.” “But suppose you had to go first and leave us behind?”
“I should like to be with Jesus, because Jesus loves me.”
“But don’t we love you?”
“You I know you love me,” replied the little girl.
“Well, then, why would you not rather stay with us?”
‘Jesus loves me, too,” said the child, hardly able yet to express her thought, but it came presently.
“Don’t we do all we can to show that we love you?” said the father.
“Yes,” replied the little girl looking very thoughtful; “You love me, but Jesus died for me.”
This settled the question to her mind, and her father’s, too, you may depend upon it. Much as the little one loved her parents, and much as they loved her, they both felt that there is One whose claims are far beyond all others; One who has proved His love in a way no other could.
Think, dear little reader, what must it have been for that Holy One to be “made sin for its that we might be made the righteousness of God in Him.” What must it have been for Jesus to bear the wrath of God? He loved God as none on earth ever loved Him, yet He had to bear God’s wrath because in His love for us, poor lost sinners, He took our place, “bare our sins in His own body on the tree,” and so took all the punishment, all the judgment, all the sorrow that we who believe in Him, as this little girl did, might never have to bear it.
O! what love was this! Well might the little girl say she would rather be with Him who had thus proved His love for her. She felt that His is a love no other can equal, though she could not express all she felt. But those few earnest words told her thought: “Jesus died for me.”
ML 11/17/1940