From the Beginning of Time…
“Even before he made the world, God loved us and chose us in Christ.”
Ephesians 1:4
Before God created time and space, before he created the universe and spoke, “Let there be light;” before he made the world and moved upon the waters, puckered up mountain ranges, or carved out rivers; before he created storehouses for the wind and snow, before all of this, God knew you and loved you.
From time immemorial, God was designing you in his heart, envisioning you as he intended you to be.
God has been thinking about you for a long time.
That includes the people with disabilities we serve at Joni and Friends—people like Jimly, a young man in the Philippines who lives with disabilities. No matter how severe or twisted the disabling condition, no matter how profound the poverty, people like Jimly are created in God’s image. Before there was a sun or moon, before there was day or night, God delighted to place his glory, his image on Jimly—and on every disabled person like him. What good news!
But here’s the really good news: when people like Jimly embrace Jesus as their Savior, they reflect something about God that’s much more specific—it’s “the image of the heavenly man,” Jesus Christ (1 Corinthians 15:49). When Jimly smiles through his tough disability, he is bearing the image of Christ’s perseverance and endurance, Christ’s patience, humility, and long-suffering. Oh, what a convincing testimony of the life-transforming power of the Gospel of Christ!
God always delights in displaying his power through weakness.
And when people who live with affliction endure pain and poverty yet keep their hearts bright and their smiles fresh—their spiritual stability can only be explained by the miracle of God’s sustaining grace.
Truly, this is great news for the weak and infirmed! Yet there are countless thousands of people like Jimly who have yet to hear this news about Jesus Christ and his saving message. Oh, my heart aches to reach them!
So this month, as we embark on our amazing 45th year of ministry, would you please help me get the salvation message of our Savior to families far and wide who struggle with disability? It doesn’t get more glorious than helping a lost soul find his place in Christ. It’s what God intended from the beginning of time.
–Joni Eareckson Tada
Do You Know Jesus?
Jesus is the only one who can forgive and transform us: “Salvation is found in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven given to men by which we must be saved” (Acts 4:12).
