How much does God care about you as an individual person? How important are you to Him? The biggest problem that children and youth have today is that they don't know who they are. Oh yes, they know their names that their parents gave them, but they don't know their true identity, they don't sense their own self-respect or self-worth as individuals. So they drift into all sorts of evil. "Here's nuthin' goin' nowhere" is the root cause of most crime and degradation, including teenage promiscuity and pregnancies that later produce a replay of the same tragic consequences, generation after generation.
When you were born as a baby, your mother probably counted everything she could see--you had both eyes, two ears, two hands, two feet, and yes, she probably counted the toes on each one to be sure you were "normal." She paid attention to you; you were important in her eyes. But as you grew older, you began to realize that she could not follow you around all your life, re-counting your fingers and your toes; you were on your own. That's when you began to have problems, unless you had learned somehow to believe that you have a heavenly Father who cares for you infinitely more than your father and your mother ever could.
One thing your mother never counted on you--how many hairs were on your head. Even though she cared for you she never cared that much. But Jesus makes a fantastic statement that must not be brushed off as mere exaggeration: He says in Matt. 10:29, 30 that your heavenly Father has counted all the hairs on your head! And you must not disbelieve it--Jesus says it; it has to be so. The important point is not the actual arithmetical total (it would do you no good to know), but it's Jesus' way of saying what David said in Psalm 139:17, 18, "How precious are thy thoughts unto me, O God! how great is the sum of them! If I should count them, they are more in number than the sand."
Now, what will you do with this? Believe it, or disbelieve it? Your happiness here and maybe forever, depends on which way you choose.
Be sure to check your e-mail for "Dial Daily Bread" again tomorrow.
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