Ted had a good home. Chris, his owner, loved the cat and took good care of him. The cat had his own open window to come and go as he pleased, and he always came home and slept on Chris’s bed every night.
Unlike most cats, Ted liked to ride in the car with Chris. Ted also seemed to like attention from people and took to spending time at a dentist’s waiting room a block away. However, when Chris drove by the dental office and called for the cat, Ted would race along a fence and jump into the car. He seemed like a happy and obedient cat.
Several years passed, and Chris got married. He and his new wife moved to another house, and Ted moved with them. Even though the new place was close to where Chris and Ted had lived before, a few weeks later Ted ran away.
Chris was so sad with his cat gone. After driving around looking for Ted, Chris decided to go by the dental office, and guess what ... there was Ted! After that, Chris decided to have an identification microchip implanted under the cat’s skin so if he ever ran away again, he could be identified and returned to Chris.
I hope none of you of you boys or girls would run away from home. Most of you have someone at home who loves you very much and takes good care of you. But according to the Bible, every boy and girl, and grown-up too, has run away from God, even though He loves us and watches over us. The Bible calls us sheep because we act like sheep. It says in Isaiah 53:6, “All we like sheep have gone astray [run away]; we have turned every one to his own way.” Even though our sins have caused us to run away from God and made Him so sad, we still belong to Him and He still loves us very much. God has sent His beloved Son, the Lord Jesus, to find us and bring us back to Himself. “The Son of Man [Jesus] is come to seek and to save that which was lost” (Luke 19:10). Once He has found us and washed our sins away, we can never be lost from Him again. And He doesn’t need a microchip to identify each of us as belonging to Him. The Lord Jesus lovingly says, “Fear not; for I have redeemed thee, I have called thee by thy name; thou art Mine” (Isaiah 43:1). We belong to Him, and we won’t ever want to run away again, even if we could.
But that wasn’t the case with Ted. One day he disappeared again through an upstairs window, and Chris could not find him this time. For six months Chris looked for his runaway cat. He put up posters, called animal shelters, went door to door, and checked in at the dentist’s office. No cat. Finally he gave up.
But the Lord Jesus never gives up on a sinner. He patiently waits and watches for that moment when a sinner will repent of his sins and come back to Him. His open arms invite you: “Come unto Me, all ye that labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest” (Matthew 11:28).
Ten years passed. When Chris came home from work one day and found two phone messages from an animal shelter saying that his cat had been found, he assumed it was a wrong number. He didn’t call back. But the animal shelter called again and reached him with the news that the microchip identified the cat as Ted!
Chris drove right over to the animal shelter to see if the cat really was his runaway Ted. It was, and happily the cat seemed to remember him. Chris held Ted for a long time before taking him home. When he let him loose in the car, the cat put his front paws on the dashboard, just like he always did. At last, Ted was going home.
What a happy reunion is waiting for you too when you return to the open, loving arms of the Lord Jesus. Perhaps you have waited even more than ten years to come to the Saviour who loves you so much He died for you. Will you let Him wash away your sins and welcome you into His family? It will make you so happy, and you will thank Him for all eternity. “Herein is love, not that we loved God, but that He loved us, and sent His Son to be the propitiation for our sins” (1 John 4:10). “We love Him, because He first loved us” (1 John 4:19).
MEMORY VERSE: “Fear not; for I have redeemed thee, I have called thee by thy name; thou art Mine.” Isaiah 43:1
ML-06/07/2015