Read: Romans 4:6-8; 5:6-8

“Dad’s here!” Keziah peeked her head around the side of the house. “Jonah!”

Jonah stared at his older sister. “No. He can’t be here yet.”

Jonah’s eyes filled as he heard his dad greeting his sister. He wanted to join them, but he’d been working on painting the fence for their mom all afternoon. He didn’t want to look all messy when they reunited.

He heard his dad’s voice. “Where’s my Jonah?”

Jonah couldn’t stop himself from running to Dad as soon as he rounded the house. “You’re home!”

Dad opened his arms. “I’m home.”

Jonah let his dad hug him tight, then pulled back. “I’m probably getting your uniform dirty. I wanted to get cleaned up before you got home…”

“It’s fine.” Dad chuckled. “I’m just happy to be back home with you.” He pulled Jonah back into a hug. “I missed you.”

“I’m a mess,” Jonah muttered.

“You don’t have to get cleaned up for me.” Dad patted his back. “I love you even when you’re messy. You don’t know how much I’ve been looking forward to being back with you, your mom, and your sister.”

Later, after Jonah had taken a shower and put on clean clothes, his dad took him out for ice cream.

“You know,” Dad said. “I was thinking…I told you that you didn’t need to get cleaned up for me, and that’s true. God feels the same way—and isn’t it great that He does? When we make a mess of our lives with sin, we don’t have to get cleaned up before we go to Him—we can come to Him just as we are, and He will make us clean.”

“I could’ve used some help getting clean today—that paint was hard to scrub off!” Jonah teased.

Dad rolled his eyes. “You could take care of that yourself. But we can’t clean ourselves of sin. Yet God loves us even when we’re messy—that’s why Jesus died and rose again to save us. When we trust in Him, we become God’s children—clean and forgiven.”

–Emily Acker

How about you? Have you ever felt too messy for God? Have you wondered if you’ve done too many wrong things for Him to love you and accept you? The amazing news of the gospel is that God loved us while we were sinners. We can’t clean ourselves up, so Jesus died for our sins. When we trust in Him, He will forgive us and make us clean. (To learn more, go to Have You Heard the Good News?)

Today's Key Verse: See what great love the Father has lavished on us, that we should be called children of God! 1 John 3:1 (NIV)

Today's Key Thought: God loves us at our messiest