Jesus Loves Me!

 

   “For I am persuaded that neither death not life, nor angels nor principalities nor powers, nor things present nor things to come, nor height nor depth, nor any created thing, shall be able to separate us from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.” (Romans 8:38, NKJV)

 

    There are numerous places in Scriptures (the Holy Bible) that tell us of God’s love for us. We all have heard of John 3:16 that tells us that He loved us so much that He sent His own Son to die on a cross so that anyone that believes in Him shall have everlasting life. We are told of His “loving kindness,” “His mercy,” “His faithfulness,” and His “longsuffering,” in many places throughout the record of the Holy Scriptures. It is a simple, but amazing truth: God loves me and God loves you!

 

   Every once in a while it is great to read about a faithful servant of God that showed in their life how much they appreciated the fact that God loved them and gave Himself as a sacrifice on that cross and that he or she spent their life in service to the King of kings, and the Lord of lords. I read about two such ladies the other day in a article by a Rev. Dr. Nelson L. Price, the Pastor Emeritus of Roswell Street Baptist Church in Marietta, GA.

 

   He told the story of two sisters who lived on Constitution Island, in the middle of the Hudson River next to West Point, NY, home to the U.S. Military Academy. Their father purchased a summer home on the island in 1834 and sometime after that the sisters moved there permanently and lived out their lives there. Susan and Anna Warner were their names, and both became writers of novels. Among her several books, Susan wrote “The Wide, Wide World” and it was very successful, second only in sales to “Uncle Tom’s Cabin” in the 1850’s. Anna wrote “Dollars and Cents” and several others also.

 

    Besides writing, they established a Sunday School, and would row across the river and teach the cadets at West Point on Sundays for many years. Occasionally, on Sunday afternoons they would invite the cadets to come over for lemonade and cookies in their home. The sisters wrote a song for the cadets to sing not only in services but to be sung during drills. It was to remind these future soldiers of the Love of Jesus. It had been originally written as a poem in Anna’s novel “Say and Seal.” In 1861 the words were put to music, just prior to the outbreak of the Civil War.

 

   After Susan died in 1885, the Sunday School classes became Anna’s “one thought in life" and she continued teaching until her death in 1915. The West Point class of 1915 has been called the “class the stars fell on” due to the fact that 59 of its 164  graduates that year, became General officers during World War II. The most famous of them being Dwight David Eisenhower, and one of Anna’s Sunday School students for 4 years.

 

   Their home on Constitution Island is now a national shrine you can visit, and the two sisters are the only civilian women buried in the West Point Cemetery, in honor of their years of faithful service teaching generations of West Point Cadets in Sunday School. 

 

  Oh yeah, the song that they wrote for the cadets to sing in church and drills, I am sure you have heard it many times. The song is “Jesus Loves Me This I Know.” 

 

   The story is told that someone asked the internationally acclaimed theologian Karl Barth what was his most profound thought. He replied: “Jesus loves me, this I know, for the Bible tells me so.”

 

  Yes the Bible does tell us that throughout the entire book! 

 

“For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whosoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life. For God did not send His Son into the world to condemn the world, but that the world through Him might be saved.” (John 3:16-17)

 

PRAY

 

1.    Lord, thank you for sending Your Son to this earth to take away my sins and to give me eternal life now on this earth, and for eternity in heaven.

2.    Lord, help me today to remember that You have bought and paid for me with a heavy price and that I live to serve You today.

3.    Fill me with Your Spirit, that You might live through me today and that anyone I come in contact with will see You in my words and deeds, and desire to know You also.