VERY DAY I MEET PEOPLE WHO CAN’T believe that Jesus loves them. They believe their sins are too many, too awful, or too persistent for Jesus to accept them as His friend. They believe in a judgement in which they will face their life record, and this fills them with despair. They have convinced themselves that they are lost, and although they have tried again and again, they don’t think they can be “good enough” to please God.

They can’t please their parents, their mates, their friends, or their coworkers; they can’t even please themselves. Nothing satisfies, nothing matters, nothing has meaning.

On the outside these people may appear successful, or at least content. They do the right things, know the right people, say the right words, live the right life. Inside, however, where only the heart can see, the sadness, the deep sense of being alone in a teeming world of humanity will not go away. Nights are fitful. Rest is but a dream.

Some ease their frustrations with drink, drugs, parties, or some hidden intimacy. But these also prove false, leaving them in greater pain and embarrassment than when they began. Others merely trudge on, hoping for a change they fear will never come. Does any of this sound familiar? It does to me.

My Worst Nightmare
By the summer of 1995 this was my life—all that re-mained of a once-flourishing Christian experience.

I first believed in Jesus when I was 20 years old, leaving a life of drugs and all that went with it. For the next 14 years I was a Christian. I gave Bible studies; preached; taught; vis-ited the sick, the prisoners, and the poor. Though a layperson, I spent my life in ministry. I had victory in Jesus. I was an overcomer, seeing souls won to the One who loved me. If I sinned, I confessed, believing in His forgiveness and His power to heal, determined to forsake everything for Him who had given His all for me.

But slowly I let discouragement hide God’s face from me. I began to trust more in myself and less in Him. My devotional life shriveled up; I prayed and studied the Bible less. Guilt increased. Everything seemed to go wrong. One cherished sin by one cherished sin, I slipped away from God. I came to love my sins more than the One who had died to save me from them.

I slipped back into the habit of smoking. With each cigarette the guilt increased. I began using alcohol again, and each drink was drained with remorse. Soon I needed something stronger to quiet God’s voice to my tortured soul. Drugs became my habit; selling them became a necessity.

Yet God’s voice remained.

I married, divorced, and married again. I wounded two women, two children, three stepchildren, and numerous in-laws with my selfishness. I stole from those who loved me. I lied and gambled. I broke all of God’s commandments.

But I was unable to still His voice. He kept calling my name until one day I heard a different message.

“You haven’t much time left” was the message I heard from Him more than once. I began to fear. I was afraid to go outside, to go to the store or to a friend’s home. I was afraid to sleep. Drugs couldn’t help me; drinking couldn’t cleanse me. I felt as if my time was almost gone.

A smoldering wick was all that remained of the fire inside me. How long before the devil’s breath will blow it out? I wondered. How much mercy can I expect? How much longer can God let me foul the lives of the people around me? Had I already gone too far?

God’s answer took me by surprise.

Preaching to Myself
One afternoon before I left for town, my niece began asking me questions about God and religion. In her search for answers she had become frustrated; as we talked, her eyes filled with tears of longing for something better.

A desire born of pity welled up inside of me. I knew what she needed. I began to tell her about Jesus, about how He would trade her all of His love for all of her pain, His righteousness for all of her sins. “What more can we ask?” I inquired.

But the harder I tried to explain God’s plan of salvation, the more I could see she wasn’t getting it. Finally, wanting to leave her with something lasting, I said, “Just remember this one thing: no matter what happens, no matter how you feel or what you’ve done, Jesus loves you.”

No sooner had the words come out of my mouth than I was filled with a warm thought that said, “Yes, and I love you, too.”

Tears began to roll down my cheeks. I walked to the screen door, looked out at the golden sunlight of a fall afternoon, and knew I had been born again. Jesus had broken my heart, bound my wounds, and carried me home to my Father before my trembling lips had time to thank Him.

Jesus found me in the living room of a trailer on a fall afternoon in the Kentucky woods.

have written all of this to say to anyone who wants to listen: Jesus loves you, even you.

When all is said and done, all that matters for you and me is to know Jesus. I love His invitation: “Behold, I stand at the door, and knock: if any man hear my voice, and open the door, I will come in to him, and will sup with him, and he with me. To him that overcometh will I grant to sit with me in my throne, even as I also overcame, and am set down with my Father in his throne” (Rev. 3:20, 21).

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Jan Alan McKenzie writes from Crab Orchard, Kentucky.