‘Jesus loves me this I know, for the Bible tells me so’

DAVID JONES on how God’s love brings forgiveness to the hurt and forgotten

SINCE the Christmas sales season ended, Valentine’s Day is the next retail ‘push.’

Chocolates, cuddly toys and all sort of cards from the romantic to the ridiculous now confront us as soon as we walk in! It seems, as the old song says, ‘Love is in the air!’ – February 14 in case you didn’t know!

The recurring love of the Bible is of course the greater love God has for all his people. In the law and the Prophets; in the poetical and historical books; in Gospels and letters it’s a joy to know the central truth of the Scriptures. A song we sang in Sunday school, ‘Jesus loves me this I know, for the Bible tells me so’, is so true!

A Presbyterian minister Rev John Chapman was travelling by train in a rural part of Kansas. The other passenger in the carriage was a young man who kept glancing out the window and then covering his face with his hands.

John Chapman asked if he could help. The young man told his story: many years before he had run away from home and ‘sown his wild oats.’

He had not written to his parents at all, until a few weeks before. In the letter he had begged his parents’ forgiveness and asked if they wanted him to come home. If so, they were to tie a yellow ribbon on the old apple tree that grew right beside the railway lines.

“Sir,” he said to Chapman, “the train will soon pass my home but I’m afraid to look. If there’s a yellow ribbon on the tree, I’ll get off at the next station and go home. If there’s no ribbon, I’ll just travel on. But I’m too afraid to look out for the tree.”

So Chapman offered to look for him. “You can open your eyes now,’ he said a few minutes later.

The returning prodigal looked at

Chapman with tears and quivering lips.

“All is well,” he said. “There is a yellow ribbon on the apple tree. In fact, there’s far more than one. Every branch is hanging with yellow ribbons, scores and scores of them. Your parents love you that much, they want you to come home.”

To the hurt and forgotten, God’s love brings forgiveness, peace and an assurance of heaven.

Truly a message of love to a loveless world – ‘Love divine, all loves excelling’.