There is a place of the heart that I know I should always be in and find that often I’m not. It is a place of the heart that looks at everyone as someone made in the image of God. A place of the heart that knows that God would have no one to perish though most will because of their rejection of him. It is a place of the heart that looks at people that are totally unlovely this same way. The retarded, the insane, the prisoners, the old fold home people, and the people who live in filth in some cardboard box somewhere are looked at as important to God as those who are CEO’s.

When my heart is in this place I seem to no longer hear the curse word, the lie, the dirty joke any longer that comes from a persons mouth. A person’s adultery, drunkeness, mean attitude, etc. don’t cause me to budge from the thought that he or she is made in God’s image and that God desires him or her to respond to his wooing. There is no budging from the fact that Jesus died for this person or whosoever will. The Holy Spirit draws all men unto the Christ who has been lifted up contrary to what some say. Most don’t choose God and submit to the drawing of the Holy Spirit though.

When in this place of the heart there is humility instead of pride. This place of the heart confounds the mighty of this world that doesn’t know God. It’s only in this place of the heart that a person can really go and do the Commission. The preacher may sound like thunder or talk as soft as a light wind but without this humility and compassion for the unlovely it’s nothing more than chaff.

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Gary Eckenroth