Have you ever gone to an animal shelter? While some are quite posh and are like animals hotels, others are what is referred to as “kill shelters”. In this kind of shelter, if an animal is not adopted in a certain amount of time, they die. Our family adopted a wonderful dog from one of these kinds of shelters. Daisy, our dog, is a wonderful, happy four legged member of our family. We are what shelter workers call Daisy’s “forever family”. It is startling to realize that our family was the instrument of Daisy’s salvation, as she was three days away from death. Can you imagine if we paid the shelter’s fee for Daisy, and opened the cage door for her to have life with us, but the dog absolutely refused to leave??? No WAY! Daisy, and most any other dog, would come bounding happily out to a new life. In John 8:24, God reminds us that we were all born into a “kill shelter”. We are all born sinful, and sin causes death – separation from God. We were all on “death row”, but Jesus has paid the fee to release us and opened our cage doors. Jesus paid the fee by coming to earth as a baby (God’s one and only son), being sinless, and willingly being put to death for our sins. God has opened the cage doors by raising Jesus from the grave. We can have a “forever family” with God as our Father. All we have to do is believe (Romans 10:9), realize the cage door is open and run into the arms of Jesus!