Broken Crayons Still Color.
When I found this phrase I thought I had thought it up, but it was around longer than me. It was profound. We don’t value broken things usually. We are quick to discard rather than fix. We will cast aside old for the new. We only buy the shiny. It might still work but we desire what is trending. I haven’t been trending since 1991 but I am ok with it, now. God doesn’t throw us out when we are older. God doesn’t forget about us when we are no longer pretty. God doesn’t look value us like we value ourselves. In a time when people are leaving church, God is still a valuable thing to have. God knows your worth even when we think less of ourselves. Broken crayons still color.
Why would the Creator of the universe care about me? Who am I? You are fearfully and wonderfully made, even when you discount yourself and put yourself in the $1 bin in the store. Psalm 139 verse 14 is often used to encourage people to appreciate their own unique qualities and to recognize that they are made in God's image. This image is not physical. How we look is changed by culture, environment and sin.
The apostle Paul’s discussions of the new man and old man give us insight into what it means to be created in the image and likeness of God (Ephesians 4:24; Colossians 3:10). It is an image that bears the righteousness and holiness of God. When Scripture describes all of God’s attributes, it is in the context of God being the perfection of such attributes. God is...
We look like God, sometimes, but we are not God. We are broken. Some think more than others but all of us are less than the state God wants us to be in. We all have fallen short. We even embrace it, revel in it, brag about it. And use it as an excuse not to color our world better. We talk ourselves out of righteousness. We convince ourselves we are just no good. Amy Winehouse had a great song about it. I even sing it to myself sometimes.
I cheated myself
Like I knew I would
I told you I was trouble
You know that I'm no good
It’s got a great beat. Before you know it, you can convince yourself you are no good. Stop that. God doesn’t make junk. You are not garbage. Yeah, you messed up. Yes, you should have went left but you went right. You stayed too long. You smoked too much. You didn’t get off that thang. But God....
God’s love is personal. He knows each of us individually and loves us personally. His is a mighty love that has no beginning and no end. It is this experiencing of God’s love that distinguishes Christianity from all other religions. Why does God love us? It is because of who He is: "God is love."
1 John 4:8 and 16 tell us that “God is love.” Never was a more important declaration made than this—God is love. God doesn’t just love; He is love. His nature and essence are love. Love permeates His very being and infuses all His other attributes, even His wrath and anger. Because God’s very nature is love, He must demonstrate love, just as He must demonstrate all His attributes because doing so glorifies Him.
Since it is God’s essential nature to love, He demonstrates His love by lavishing it on undeserving people who are in rebellion against Him. God’s love is not a sappy, sentimental, romantic feeling. Rather, it is agape love, the love of self-sacrifice. He demonstrates this sacrificial love by sending His Son to the cross to pay the penalty for our sin (1 John 4:10), by drawing us to Himself (John 6:44), by forgiving us of our rebellion against Him, and by sending His Holy Spirit to dwell within us, thereby enabling us to love as He loves. He did this in spite of the fact that we did not deserve it.
Since the fall we have been in rebellion and disobedience. Our innermost beings are so corrupted by sin that even we don’t realize the extent to which sin has tainted us. In our natural state, we do not seek God; we do not love God; we do not desire God. Romans 3:10-12 clearly presents the state of the natural, unregenerate person:
“There is none righteous, no, not one; There is none who understands; There is none who seeks after God. They have all turned aside; They have together become unprofitable; There is none who does good, no, not one.”
No matter how you got here, what you have done, where you have been, or who your mama was, you are good. You have a purpose. You have a gift. You have talents. You are worth it. Stop acting like you don’t know better. It’s not too late to turn around. It’s not too late to change. Stop judging people like you have a heaven to keep them out of or a hell to put them into. It’s not too late to do the right thing. Others might not see your value but God knows that a broken crayon can still color.
"But God demonstrates His own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us" (Romans 5:8).