LITTLE MARTHA’S father was a soldier in active service. While he was away, Martha lived with her grandmother. We are sorry to say that Martha’s daddy was a stranger to God against whom he had sinned.
One day he received a letter from his mother. He read the letter, and then noted in a corner in a child’s large hand-writing these ten words: “I do love you, Daddy, and God loves you too.”
Brief as it was, the effect of that message upon the soldier who thought little of God or of His Son, the Lord Jesus Christ, was tremendous. For a time he stood dumbfounded. “God loves you too,” and that in the face of the knowledge that he was a vile sinner. But it was a powerful message from God to his soul, convicting him of his sinful life.
Bursting into tears, he got down on his knees and there he met the Lord, the Saviour, who in spite of his sins, loved him. It was this that melted him. It was this—the goodness of God—that filled him with shame and sorrow when he thought of his past life.
He remembered that one little verse, “For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in Him should not perish, but have everlasting life.” John 3:1616For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life. (John 3:16).
When he got up from his knees he was a changed man, with the knowledge of salvation and the joy of the Lord in his heart, with new hopes and desires. His afterlife proved the reality of his conversion, and his desire was to tell others that God loved them and Jesus died for them.
ML-07/30/1972