READ: ZEPHANIAH 3:14-17; EPHESIANS 2:1-9

Although my family hosted many guests in our home when I was a kid, the most memorable ones were strangers from Australia.

Our house sat near a highway in a rural area. One afternoon, we spotted a young man and woman walking down the road. They wore heavy-duty backpacks and hiking boots. We said “hello” from our front yard, and my dad struck up a conversation. He invited them to eat with us, and as we made peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, we listened raptly to their stories of hiking across America.

As a young kid, I wanted to entertain these special visitors from an exotic location, so I started tumbling and dancing around our living room. I turned flips and then did headstands on our couch where Mama and the Australian woman sat—hoping for their attention. Hoping to be noticed. Hoping to be delighted in.

We all want to be seen and noticed, to be cherished and to be the cause of someone’s delight. God has created us that way, with a longing to be valued and to be assured of our value. The gospel gives us that assurance—that God loved us so deeply He sent His perfect Son to sacrifice Himself for us and to reconcile us with God. The gospel also gives us the bad news: that our sin separates us from God and that we deserve punishment for rebelling against God’s holiness.

Understanding these gospel truths—that we deserve death for our sin and that God forged a way for us to be rescued by Jesus—draws us to trust in Christ’s sacrifice on our behalf. To enter the relationship with God that He created us to experience. And to grow in that relationship for the rest of our lives. Zephaniah 3:17 assures those who trust in Jesus that God saves us, delights in us, and rejoices over us—no entertaining headstands required. • Allison Wilson Lee

• Do you ever feel you work hard on doing things “right” to get God’s attention or earn His love? It’s easy to fall into this, no matter how old we are. But at the end of the day, living this way doesn’t bring the freedom God wants for us. Instead, Scripture tells us that God delights in His people. Is that hard for you to comprehend—that God is crazy about you? Consider taking a moment to talk to Him about this, asking Him to show you how He truly feels about you.

“The LORD your God is with you, the Mighty Warrior who saves. He will take great delight in you; in his love he will no longer rebuke you, but will rejoice over you with singing.” Zephaniah 3:17 (NIV)