"Come unto Me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden" (Matt. 11:28). That includes bad people. He loves sinners! Even bad ones, and worse ones.

There are two prayers that the Lord always loves to answer: (1) "Take not Thy Holy Spirit from me" (Psalm 51:11), and (2) "Restore unto me the joy of Thy salvation" (vs. 12). Both prayers are prayers of penitence.

The Lord does not want to humiliate us or to rub our nose in the dirt; He wants us to lift up our heads, not in proud arrogance but in the full consciousness that He is happy with our spiritual condition.

Repentance is not painful sorrow; the painful sorrow should give way to sober rejoicing that we have been reconciled to God and we are "at-one" with Him.

The word "atonement" is not a mysterious Latin word that theologians in ivory towers use in their theological stratospheric discussions. It's a simple old Anglo-Saxon word that means only to be at-one-with someone from whom you have been estranged. The Lord is not estranged from you; He needs no "atonement" to reconcile His heart to yours.

Even if you have sinned grievously (and this message is written with the prayer that it may reach someone who has sinned grievously and feels estranged from the Lord), the dear Lord Jesus says, "Come unto Me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden" (Matt. 11:28). That includes bad people. He loves sinners! Even bad ones, and worse ones.

"Prove Me now herewith, saith the Lord of hosts" (Mal. 3:10). The context has to do with tithe-paying--but the basic idea is that the Lord wants us to try Him, put Him on trial. The Lord won't forsake the one who confesses that he believes that all he has is the gift of the Lord--that's the basis of tithe paying. The point is that the Lord welcomes doubters, people who have to struggle to believe how good He is to sinners.

The Lord Jesus is the divine Son of God but He is also the Son of man; He is a Person; He is near to us; He is real; He doesn't manifest Himself to each of us visibly and personally because if He did, there would be no faith involved, and salvation is only by faith. Therefore, it's because of His love for us that He abides within the vail, so we can learn what it means to believe.