Unconditional Acceptance

Unconditional Acceptance

So Mephibosheth dwelt in Jerusalem, for he ate continually at the king’s table. And he was lame in both his feet.

II Samuel 9:13

It is wonderful to behold those who are Christ’s behaving in a Christ-like manner.  David, ‘the man after God’s Own Heart,’ does that on many occasions.  In the passage from which our text for today comes, we see David mirroring and modeling Christ in his relationship with Mephibosheth.  Mephibosheth was a son of Jonathan, of the household of Saul, the previous king of Israel, who had sought diligently to kill David.  Because of the error of his nurse, who had dropped him in his infancy, Mephibosheth was a paraplegic.  He was, ‘lame in both his feet.’  He was not one of the ‘beautiful people,’ nor was he a shining ‘candidate for grace.’  He was not ever going to be an ‘adornment’ for the king’s table.  His disability, caused by another, would never improve or disappear.  Yet, David demonstrated Christ-like compassion upon him, and displayed an unconditional acceptance of him.  So Christ does to us.  We have permanent disabilities of every stripe and variety, some visible and some invisible.  The effects of those incidences may never fully disappear in this scene of time. They may forever, while we are in the flesh, be our ‘thorns in the flesh.’  Yet, Christ unconditionally accepts us, our unattractiveness notwithstanding.  Let us today, magnify this overwhelmingly Compassionate Savior.

Our Kind and Compassionate Savior,
we praise You for Your gracious acceptance of us,
all our flaws and failings notwithstanding.
We rejoice today, that You have received us into the number
of those who have a home with You.

Tomm Tice
where the Bush is Burning