Seven-year-old Janet lived in an old apartment building in the city. The area around the building was mostly cement except for the small yard right behind the building. There weren’t any flowers or bushes in the yard, but at least it was a yard where she could play.
One day as she and her friend Elaine were coming home from school, they saw some beautiful roses growing on a trellis on the side of a house.
As the two girls admired and smelled the flowers, Elaine said, “I don’t think the people who live here would care if we took just one rose. They are so beautiful.”
Janet was a Christian, but she didn’t think the owners would care either. The two of them tiptoed up to the trellis, and each girl picked off a rose. Then they hurried away, hoping the owners would not see them.
Janet began to feel very guilty as she walked home. She enjoyed the rose and loved its smell, but she knew she had sinned. She knew that God had seen her steal. Just before she reached home, she put the rose in her jacket pocket so that her mother wouldn’t ask her questions about it.
A few days later when her mother was brushing off Janet’s jacket, she noticed the wilted rose in her pocket. “Where did this come from?” she asked. “We don’t have any red roses like this around here.”
Poor Janet started to cry, and then she told her mother how she had taken the rose. Her mother had to punish her for stealing, but I am sure that Janet learned her lesson. She got down on her knees and confessed to the Lord Jesus what she had done.
Although we all are sinners, God has a message for each of us. The message of the gospel is that God loves us and has provided a way that any sinner who comes to Him may have his, or her, sins washed away. This is possible through the death of the Lord Jesus on the cross. The precious blood of the Lord Jesus Christ, God’s only Son, can cleanse us from all sin. Accept Him now as your own personal Saviour. “Come now, and let us reason together, saith the Lord: though your sins be as scarlet, they shall be as white as snow; though they be red like crimson, they shall be as wool.” Isaiah 1:1818Come now, and let us reason together, saith the Lord: though your sins be as scarlet, they shall be as white as snow; though they be red like crimson, they shall be as wool. (Isaiah 1:18).
ML-11/16/1986