My son and I were playing Monopoly on the decking outside our holiday home, when a gust of wind picked up The Strand property card and dropped it neatly through a gap between two planks. Peering through the gap the card was clearly visible but out of reach.
For a few moments we debated whether to rescue the card as it was clearly going to take some effort. If it had been Mayfair then definitely, the Old Kent Road probably not, but this was The Strand. But then we realised that the value of the card didn’t matter. What mattered was that it completed a set. We had to get it back. So one hour, one blister and 24 screws removed and replaced later the card was finally free, and our game could go on.
In a similar way God might have considered the effort required to free us from sin not worthwhile. But the Bible tells us that he went to the trouble of sending his son to die for us, and that he did so not just to save people we consider valuable but to rescue the least and the lost. Like us he didn’t want his ‘set’ to be incomplete.
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