Steve Higginbotham recalls: One day, my daughter and I were sitting outside of a bank waiting on my wife, who was inside the bank, when an armored truck pulled up next to us. At the time, my daughter was probably four or five years old, so I thought I'd have a little fun with her.

I explained to my daughter what an armored truck was, and then said, "I think I'm going to go over there and bop one of those men on the head and take some of that money." My daughter immediately told me that I shouldn't do that, so I asked her, "Why not?" While this conversation occurred more than 25 years ago, I am still challenged by the profundity of my daughter's response.  She said, "Daddy, you can't take that money because that would make God sad."

I was floored! I expected her to say something like, "Daddy, you can't do that because you'll get shot...get arrested...or go to jail," but she cut through all those pragmatic, lesser reasons and offered the only one that really mattered, "Daddy, you can't do that because that would make God sad."

I hope that for as long as I live, I will never forget her response, and I will allow her answer to serve as a guide for all of my decisions. I hope the same for you, too.*

The bad news is that we’ve all made God sad by our actions.  “For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God” (Romans 3:23).  At times, we may have been unconcerned as to how our thoughts and actions affected God.  At other times, we may have only stumbled.  But, we’ve all sinned, and as a result, we’ve broken the law and the heart of God.

Here’s the Good News: God loves us anyway.  He loves us so much that He gave His one and only Son to die on the cross for our sins so that we can have the forgiveness of our sins and receive the gift of eternal life (John 3:16; Ephesians 1:7; Romans 6:23).

God will forgive and give eternal life to those who place their faith and trust in Jesus (Acts 16:30-31), turn from their sins in repentance (Acts 17:30-31), confess Jesus before men (Romans 10:9-10), and are baptized (immersed) into Christ for the forgiveness of sins (Acts 2:38).

Going forward, we will stumble along the way, and we’ll make God sad again.  But if we’ll respond with Godly sorrow and repent (2 Corinthians 7:9-10) and confess that sin to God, then the blood of Jesus will cleanse us again (1 John 1:7-9).

I don’t want to make God sad.  I hope you don’t either.  Because God loves me so much that He would give His Son to die for me, I don’t want to disappoint Him anymore.  Like Paul, I want to “make it my aim to be well-pleasing to Him” (2 Corinthians 5:9).  I know I will “miss the mark” from time to time, but my aim is to please the One who gave His life for me.

It pleases God when we humble ourselves and come to Him for forgiveness.  It pleases God when our aim is to follow in the steps of Jesus.

Don’t YOU want to please God by responding to His love in these ways?

-- David A. Sargent

* “The Only Reason that Matters” by Steve Higginbotham in MercyMail, September 19, 2019.

David A. Sargent, Minister

Church of Christ at Creekwood 
1901 Schillinger Rd. S.
Mobile, Alabama  36695

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