The End...

   "He gently clothed them and then he sent them away on a long, long journey--out of the garden, our of their home.  Well, in another story, it would all be over and that would have been... The End.

   "But not in this story.

   "You see, no matter what, in spite of everything, God would love his children--with a Never Stopping, Never Giving Up, Unbreaking, Always and Forever Love."

   Those lines are excerpts from The Jesus Storybook Bible by Sally Lloyd-Jones, one of my favorite books of all time.  The words ring with a truth that is beautiful in and of itself:  The Gospel.  God has not left us.  He has not abandoned us.  In fact, he has done exactly the opposite.  When we ran from him in rebellion and sin, he stooped down to us and brought us into his family.

   You see, friends, if we were the authors of the story, we would wander in the wilderness of this world without hope.  But it is not that way in God's Story.  

   "And although you were dead in your transgressions and sins, in which you formerly lived according to this world’s present path, according to the ruler of the kingdom of the air, the ruler of the spirit that is now energizing the sons of disobedience, among whom all of us also formerly lived out our lives in the cravings of our flesh, indulging the desires of the flesh and the mind, and were by nature children of wrath even as the rest…

   "But God, being rich in mercy, because of his great love with which he loved us, even though we were dead in transgressions, made us alive together with Christ—by grace you are saved!– and he raised us up with him and seated us with him in the heavenly realms in Christ Jesus, to demonstrate in the coming ages the surpassing wealth of his grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus." (Eph. 2:1-7, NET)