This was the second of the 31 pieces of Little Pillows.
ACCEPTED.
“Accepted in the Beloved.”—Ephesians 1:6.
Who is “accepted in the Beloved”? You, if you have come to your heavenly Father, asking him to receive you for Jesus Christ’s sake. Dear little one, wanting to know that you are saved and forgiven, take all the beautiful comfort and joy of these words! They are for you just as much as for any grown-up person.
Ask Him now to give you faith to believe them for yourself, while you try to understand what they really mean for you.
Suppose a king came and proclaimed among a number of poor children that he would take any one to stay with him in his beautiful palace, who really wished to go and asked him to take them. Suppose you heard this, and wished the king would take you. Then the king beckons you, and you venture near; and then the prince royal himself comes and leads you up to his father, and tells you to say what you want, and you say, “I do want to go, please take me!” Will the king break his word and not take you? Why, in the first place, he never breaks his promise. And then he beckoned you himself, and that was what made you go. And then the prince, who is his beloved son, took your hand and brought you; and would the king send the little one away whom he brought? There can be no mistake about it; he cannot have rejected you, and said he will not have you, so you must be “accepted.”
So every one who has come to Jesus even if only a little girl or boy, is “accepted in the Beloved.” Accepted, because God has said, “I will receive you.” Accepted, because He Himself has called and drawn you, or you never would have wanted to come. Accepted, because the Beloved One has made the way open for you to come by His own blood, and saves all that come unto God by Him. Accepted, not because you were worth God’s accepting, but “accepted in the Beloved.”
“Safe in the arms of Jesus,
Safe on His gentle breast,
There, by His love o’ershadowed,
Sweetly my soul shall rest.
Hark! ’tis the voice of angels,
Borne in a song to me,
Over the fields of glory,
Over the jasper sea.”