Ron Hutchcraft Ministries - An Orphan No More - #4956

Monday, January 9, 2006

As your parents get older, they love to tell those stories - sometimes many times. We've enjoyed hearing some of the family stories that my wife's Dad had to tell. It's filling in a lot of blanks, actually, as we try to put together the history of the last couple of generations. We asked him once about that little girl named Ada. My wife's grandfather, Granddad Glenn, had one child - her Dad. And he wanted a sister! So, Granddad Glenn traveled from their small town to a major city to check out the adoption possibilities at an orphanage there. I don't know if he was prepared for the reception he got there. Everywhere he went, children asked him if they could go home with him. But there was this one dark-haired, dark-eyed little girl who just wouldn't leave his side. Her name was Ada. She wouldn't let go of Granddad's hand, and she kept looking up at him with her big brown eyes and begging him, "Please let me go home with you. Please take me." He did. And my wife's Dad got his sister.

I'm Ron Hutchcraft and I want to have A Word With You today about "An Orphan No More."

The heart of an orphan desperately reaching for someone to love and take care of her - that's a feeling you may know even though you're not physically an orphan. But life can get pretty lonely - relationships that were supposed to bring you love and happiness ended up bringing disappointment and hurt. You live enough years, there's a good chance you can end up feeling abandoned at some point, left out, rejected, alone - even with lots of people around you.

And the biggest mistakes we make in our life are often mistakes we make for love. We keep reaching for a hand that might offer love and saying, "Take me. If you do, I'll be OK." But we've never really been totally OK. No love has ever been enough love, and sometimes we've paid too high a price to get someone to take us.

It's this orphan feeling in the human heart that Jesus Christ speaks to in our word for today from the Word of God, recorded in John 14:18 . He says, "I will not leave you as orphans; I will come to you." Jesus says, "I can give you the 'never leave you' love that your heart has always been hungry for.'" Actually, He's the only one who can finally bring us spiritual orphans home.

The loneliness we just keep feeling is ultimately cosmic loneliness. We're lonely for God. Why? Because He made us for His love and we've left Him. It isn't that we don't have a Father. We feel like emotional and spiritual orphans because we've never begun a relationship with this Father who loves us so very much. In Isaiah 53:6 , God describes how we have missed His love. "We all, like sheep, have gone astray, each of us has turned to his own way." Our sin, our "my way" living has cut us off from the love we were made for, and only Jesus could bring us back. The rest of that verse says, "The Lord has laid on him (that's Jesus) the wrongdoing of us all." Jesus died on the cross, carrying all the guilt and all the hell of all your sin and mine. That's why He cried out, "My God, My God, why have you forsaken me?" (Matthew 27:46 ) Reason: He was cut off from the Father so you would never have to be cut off from Him again.

And now He's reaching out His hand for you to offer you the relationship - the love that you were made for. The questions is, "Are you going to reach back?" Grab the hand of Jesus and tell Him, "Lord, take me. You're this orphan's only hope. You died for me and I am yours." Would you tell Him that right now?

We would love to help you be sure that you belong to Jesus Christ, and you can come to our website. It's yoursforlife.net and there I would invite you to either listen to or read what I have written or said about how to begin your relationship with Him. That's yoursforlife.net. Or if you would just like to receive Yours For Life in printed form, you can call us toll free for that at 877-741-1200.

Your Heavenly Father has come to where you are today to bring you into His family - to bring you home to His love. Like a little orphan many years ago, reach up and say, "Take me." You will be an orphan no more.