LOVE COVERS A MULTITUDE OF SINS

LOVE COVERS A MULTITUDE OF SINS

“Above all, love each other deeply, because love covers over a multitude of sins” (I Pete 2 4:8).

Come with me to a third-grade classroom… There is a nine-year-old kid sitting at his desk and all of a sudden, there is a puddle between his feet and the front of his pants are wet.  He thinks his heart is going to stop because he cannot possibly imagine how this has happened.  It’s never happened before, and he knows that when the boys find out he will never hear the end of it.  When the girls find out, they’ll never speak to him again as long as he lives.

The boy believes his heart is going to stop; he puts his head down and prays this prayer, ‘Dear God, this is an emergency!  I need help now!  Five minutes from now I’m dead meat.’  He looks up from his prayer and here comes the teacher with a look in her eyes that says he has been discovered. As the teacher is walking toward him, a classmate named Suzie is carrying a goldfish bowl that is filled with water.  Suzie trips in front of the teacher and inexplicably dumps the bowl of water on the boy’s lap.

The boy pretends to be angry, but all the while is saying to himself, ‘Thank you, Lord!  Thank you, Lord!’

Now all of a sudden, instead of being the object of ridicule, the boy is the object of sympathy.  The teacher rushes him downstairs and gives him gym shorts to put on while his pants dry out.  All the other children are on their hands and knees cleaning up around his desk.  The sympathy is wonderful.  But as life would have it, the ridicule that should have been his has been transferred to someone else–Suzie.

She tries to help, but they tell her to get out.  ‘You’ve done enough, you klutz!’ Finally at the end of the day, as they are waiting for the bus, the boy walks over to Suzie and whispers, ‘You did that on purpose, didn’t you?’  Suzie whispers back, ‘I wet my pants once too.’

May God help us see the opportunities that are always around us to do good.  Remember–Just going to church doesn’t make you a Christian any more than standing in your garage makes you a car.                                            Author unknown

Every day, we have tremendous opportunities to show people the same love and forgiveness we have experienced from Jesus.  All of us identify with people who have sinned or failed in life.  It isn’t pointing out their sins or failures that will help them; they already know what they have done wrong.  They need to know the One who has already forgiven them and that He took their sins upon Himself and paid a price we couldn’t.  It is this truth that restores people.  Be the “Suzie” to those whom you meet daily who feel condemned because of their past. If Jesus didn’t come to condemn them, we shouldn’t either.  We can help them escape their condemnation by unveiling God’s love and forgiveness to them.                                                                       

                                                                   Ed Elliot