{"id":49806,"date":"2001-05-14T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2001-05-14T00:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.christianitytoday.com\/pastors\/preaching\/sermon-illustrations\/knowing-gods-acceptance\/"},"modified":"2001-05-14T00:00:00","modified_gmt":"2001-05-14T00:00:00","slug":"knowing-gods-acceptance","status":"publish","type":"sermon-illustrations","link":"https:\/\/www.christianitytoday.com\/pastors\/preaching\/sermon-illustrations\/knowing-gods-acceptance\/","title":{"rendered":"Knowing God&#8217;s Acceptance"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>In his book, <em class=\"citation\">Connecting,<\/em> Larry Crabb writes:<\/p>\n\n<blockquote class=\"wp-block-quote is-layout-flow wp-block-quote-is-layout-flow\">\n<p>A friend of mine was raised in an angry family. Mealtimes were either silent or sarcastically noisy. Down the street was an old-fashioned house with a big porch where a happy family lived. My friend told me that when he was about ten, he began excusing himself from his dinner table as soon as he could without being yelled at, and walking to the old-fashioned house down the street. If he arrived during dinnertime, he would crawl under the porch and just sit there, listening to the sounds of laughter.<\/p>\n\n<\/blockquote>\n\n<blockquote class=\"wp-block-quote is-layout-flow wp-block-quote-is-layout-flow\">\n<p>When he told me this story, I asked him to imagine what it would have been like if the father in the house somehow knew he was huddled beneath the porch and sent his son to invite him in. I asked him to envision what it would have meant to him to accept the invitation, to sit at the table, to accidentally spill his glass of water, and hear the father roar with delight, &quot;Get him more water! And a dry shirt! I want him to enjoy the meal!&quot;<\/p>\n\n<\/blockquote>\n\n<p>Crabb goes on to say, &quot;We need to hear the Father laugh. Change depends on experiencing the character of God.&quot;<\/p>","protected":false},"author":30,"featured_media":0,"template":"","tax_ctp_audience":[310],"tax_ctp_authors":[],"tax_ctp_categories":[165],"tax_ctp_format":[171],"tax_ctp_illustration_types":[411],"tax_ctp_multimedia":[],"tax_ctp_point_editor":[],"tax_publications":[140],"tax_ctp_tags":[3368,3414,3921,3960,3967,3971,4091,4117,4329,4340,4596],"tax_ctp_topics":[378],"class_list":["post-49806","sermon-illustrations","type-sermon-illustrations","status-publish","hentry","tax_publications-ct-pastors","tax_ctp_tags-acceptance","tax_ctp_tags-anger","tax_ctp_tags-experiencing-god","tax_ctp_tags-family","tax_ctp_tags-fathers-day","tax_ctp_tags-fathers","tax_ctp_tags-grandparents-day","tax_ctp_tags-happiness","tax_ctp_tags-knowing-god","tax_ctp_tags-laughter","tax_ctp_tags-parenting"],"acf":{"scripture_references":[{"first_verse":null,"add_second_verse":false,"second_verse":null},{"first_verse":null,"add_second_verse":false,"second_verse":null},{"first_verse":null,"add_second_verse":false,"second_verse":null},{"first_verse":null,"add_second_verse":false,"second_verse":null},{"first_verse":null,"add_second_verse":false,"second_verse":null},{"first_verse":null,"add_second_verse":false,"second_verse":null},{"first_verse":null,"add_second_verse":false,"second_verse":null}]},"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v22.9 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Knowing God&#039;s Acceptance - CT Pastors<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.christianitytoday.com\/pastors\/preaching\/sermon-illustrations\/knowing-gods-acceptance\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Knowing God&#039;s Acceptance - CT Pastors\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"In his book, Connecting, Larry Crabb writes: A friend of mine was raised in an angry family. 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