Beauty and the Beast

His friends all say, "he's gotta be the luckiest guy in the world!". Her friends all wonder, "what in the world does she see in him?". And we all know they're both right.

It's mysterious. It's scandalous. It's troubling. In the case of our romance with Jesus, it's all of the above. He's the Beauty. We are the beast. We are the worst of the worst - the least of the least - and yet He loves us recklessly and relentlessly.

It's true. Jesus came to love the last, the least and the lost. Because of this, those who were repelled by the religious establishment, were strangely attracted to Him.

What made Jesus attractive to people who are far from God? Or, As Philip Yancey puts it: "How did he, the only perfect person in history, manage to attract the notoriously imperfect?"

He loved the unlovable...the loathable. He was their friend. Am I? Are you?

Here is my conviction...everybody matters to God. And if everybody matters to Him...if everybody is somebody to Jesus - then, everybody must matter to me...everybody must be somebody to me. God help me to build relational bridges so that people who are far from God can come near. Teach me how to live the Jesus life by loving the last, the least and the lost the way He did and does.

Tweet of the day:Rob Bell summarizing the gospel in 140 characters or less - "The gospel is the counterintuitive, joyous, exuberant news that Jesus has brought the unending, limitless, stunning love of God to even us.”