My little son who is 2 years old can sometimes be very mischievous. I tell him something and he does the exact opposite with a smile on his face, wanting to test my boundaries. When he sees me getting upset, he comes straight to me and says sorry like he means it. Asks for me to hug him and kiss him. How can someone refuse to hug a child with those large innocent looking eyes? Once he gets his hug, he walks away happily knowing that his wrong wasn’t counted against him. He blows kisses like nothing ever happened
One of the passages of scripture narrates a similar story, just more powerful.
Then he (the criminal) said, “Jesus, remember me when you come into your kingdom. Jesus answered him, “Truly I tell you, today you will be with me in paradise.”
A criminal who was judged to die for his crime, looked to Jesus with his dying breath and asked Jesus to remember him. And Jesus instantly said, “you will be with me in Paradise”. His records of crime were wiped clean in God’s book because His crime was now on Jesus. Jesus took on his sins and died so he could be set free. All it took for the criminal to be counted as a good man was to turn to Jesus and say “I need you”. Nothing else! It’s that simple to enter into God’s love that’s available to every single human being in this world. His love is endless, and He desires for us to come to Him just as we are. All messed up, broken, with all the failures and mistakes. He is willing to take them all and set our records clean. We don’t have to strive anymore to be perfect to be loved by our God. We just have to run to Him and say “Lord remember me!”, and He can never say no.