God and you

Day 194

'When Jesus rose early on the first day of the week, he appeared first to Mary Magdalene, out of whom he had driven seven demons.'

Mark 16:9

You might think it a little strange that I have just picked the this one verse out from the bible. But I think it shows you so, so much of Jesus' love and acceptance. The first person who saw Jesus after his resurrection was Mary Magdalene, who was:

A. a woman, and at the time women were not as respected and given the same rights as men (I've talked about this in one of my recent devotionals about Deborah if you want to read more about women in the bible)

B. a person who had been under the power of seven demons, which, as you can imagine, would have cast her out from society and made her be viewed as perhaps a dangerous person.

C. not one of the 12 disciples, or Jesus' human family, although she was undeniably a strong follower of Jesus and perhaps as close to him as any of the disciples. You would imagine Jesus would come to one to one of the disciples first, but no, he chose Mary Magdalene.

All of this leads to the honest conclusion that everyone is equal to Jesus. He accepts everyone, casts no-one out and loves each individual exactly the same, for we are all his children. And so, if you feel worthless, like Jesus can't love you and use you for you have done something you know is wrong, or you feel you aren't ....... enough, you are totally and completely wrong. You are so unique, and so loved by the king of all the Earth that nothing can stand in your way.

Finally, if we're trying to be more like Jesus in everything we do, then we need to accept everyone as equal, and show the same love to absolutely everyone. Which is hard, because you know if someone's hurt you really bad or you're not sure what to think about what they say is right. But we've got to stick to the ultimate truth that Jesus is Lord, and he has no favourites - he accepts everyone into his family.

Prayer

Dear lord,

Thank you that you are accepting and that you love everyone equally. Thank you that nothing can stand in the way of your unstoppable love. Please help me to know that no matter what, you can use me and you love me. Please help me to accept everyone just like you, Jesus.

Amen