June 21, 2021
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My oldest son had saved up for this baseball card show for months. He was about nine at the time, and he was already good at knowing which cards to buy; he was really a sharp investor. One of his biggest frustrations was that all of my '50s vintage baseball cards had been thrown out when we moved during my childhood, so he never quite forgave his grandmother for that. But imagine what they could have been worth by now! But I shared with him that when I was a kid I liked to turn in Coke bottles and get deposit money, and I'd get baseball cards with that myself.
I was trying to get the cards of all the players from the favorite team of my boyhood, the Chicago White Sox. I really wanted the whole team! Now, my hero was a star second baseman named Nellie Fox, who's in the Hall of Fame now. And wouldn't you know, I would get six or eight copies of other players, and I could never get a pack that had Nellie Fox in it. I had the entire White Sox team except for Nellie Fox.
Well, we got to this baseball card show. I looked around with my youngest son for a while. We even stopped at a table that had some Nellie Fox cards that were from my era. I turned my son loose for a little while to spend the money that he had carefully saved over all those months. And a few minutes later I felt a tug on my pant leg, and there was my oldest son, who was reaching up to me with something in his hand and tears in his eyes. He said, "Daddy, I know you always wanted Nellie Fox. I bought you some. I love you." I was overwhelmed! He had loved me enough to spend on me everything he had.
I'm Ron Hutchcraft and I want to have A Word With You today about "Spending It All On the One He Loves."
If there are three words that I had the power to tattoo on your soul for the rest of your life, it would be these words, God Loves You. I don't know what the word "love" has meant in your life. Maybe you've loved and lost. Maybe there's never been enough love.
Maybe love has meant disappointment and hurt, rejection or abandonment. Maybe for all the love you've had, it's still never filled that hole in your heart. Well, that's because there's a love so big that only God can give it...that can alone fill the hole in your heart.
Now, our word for today from the Word of God tells us how we know He loves us. Romans 8:32 says, "He that spared not His own Son, but delivered Him up for us all, how will He also with Him not freely give us all things?" Delivered up His Son for us! There was nothing more valuable God had than His Son. So how do you know how much He loves you? He spent the best He had. He spent His Son to get you back.
Why was that necessary? Well, because you and I have made the same choice about our life. We've decided we would run it instead of the God who gave us our life. He's a holy God. He governs the entire universe. We're rebels. We've set out to do it my way instead of God's way. We're fine if He runs the universe. We won't let Him run us.
The Bible says there's a death penalty for that; an eternal, awful, unthinkable death penalty for running our own lives, being spiritual hijackers. But instead of us paying that price, God gave His only Son. In the words of the Bible, "God loved the world so much" - you could put your name there - "God loved (yeah, you) so much that He gave His one and only Son, that whoever believes in Him will not perish (not have that death penalty) but have eternal life."
Today God sent me with that message to wherever you are so you could for the first time in your life experience the love you were made for. You want that? You want to begin this love relationship with your Creator? Would you say, "Jesus, I believe when You died, you were dying for my sin. And when you walked out of that grave under your own power, it meant you could walk into my life today. I'm yours from today on."
This would be a good time for you to check out our website, because what you're going to find there is the information that will help you be sure you have begun life's greatest love relationship. The website's ANewStory.com.
Nobody loves you like God does. No one was willing to pay the price for you that God paid.