“Who is It?” the shy young man asked. It turned out to be the friend’s cousin Mary. But since he never met her, this introvert immediately responded, “Oh no, I’m not going on any blind date!”

“Hey, don’t worry about this one,” his friend said. “Mary is a terrific girl, and trust me she’s really pretty. But if you don’t believe me, I’ll tell you how to get out of the date if you don’t agree. This is what I do: I go to the girl’s house to pick her up, and when she opens the door, I check her out. If I like what I see, then great, we’re all set. But if she’s ugly, I fake an asthma attack. I grab my throat like I am choking and scream ‘aahhhggg!’ So we have to call off the date. Just like that; no problem!”

The shy young man thought about it. He still wasn’t sure, but he didn’t want to appear scared, so he agreed. Besides, the whole scam seemed easy enough if he had to use it.

So the big night came. He went to pick Mary up at the house. He knocked on the door and she opened it. He looked at her and to his surprise, his friend was right. She was beautiful! He stood there not knowing what to say.

She looked at him for a moment, and then she grabbed her throat like she was choking and screamed, “Aaahhhggggg!”

Chances are you’ve been rejected by someone at some time in you life because, for whatever reason, you didn’t measure up. You didn’t drive the right car, have the right job, or mix with the right people – the list of potential “flaws” is endless.

But the great thing is: God doesn’t look at us that way. 1 Samuel 16:7 says, “Man looks at the outward appearance, but the Lord looks at the heart.” God’s love for us isn’t dependent on anything superficial, but on His deep and abiding love for His own. He says, “I have loved you with an everlasting love; I have drawn you with loving-kindness” (Jeremiah 31:3).

Because God loved us first (1 John 4:19), we love Him in return – not with a sticky sweet, romantic, twitter-pated sentimentality (“Jesus is my boyfriend”), but with a passion for His supremacy borne out of thankfulness for His sacrificial love for us.

God pours out His love for us by the Holy Spirit (Romans 5:5) so we can reach out and love all kinds of people, regardless of their outward appearance or the rejection they’ve felt from others.

Let’s use this season of love to savor Christ’s love for us and then practice spreading His love to others so they too might have joy.

Loving you in the LORD,

Pastor Bill Linton