The Prince Finds Cinderella

THERE’S a very beautiful story about a beautiful lady. Her name is Cinderella. But Cinderella was made to feel ugly.

She lived with a wicked stepmother and two equally wicked sisters. We all are influenced by a wicked stepmother, the Devil, who’s got two wicked daughters: the world and the flesh. Cinderella was made to live as a slave. Now, she was beautiful, but she didn’t feel beautiful.

She didn’t think about herself as beautiful, because she was being influenced by a wicked environment that put her down, messed over her, and reduced her to nothing. The problem with Cinderella was that she was stuck there. She was locked in the situation, and for a long time, she could not get out of it. But lo and behold, one night there was a ball.

And through a series of miraculous interventions, she was transported to the ball in a chariot. There she met a prince. The prince saw Cinderella, and loved her. But the problem in the story, as you know, is that the clock struck midnight.

When the clock hit midnight, she reverted back to her old ways. She became a slave again to an evil stepmother, and an evil stepsister. But the good news of the story is the prince never forgot Cinderella.

Oh, there were a whole lot of folk at the ball, but there was something about Cinderella that made her different from the crowd. Everybody wanted the prince, but the prince wanted Cinderella.

He spared no effort to find Cinderella. All he had to work with was a walking problem. There was a shoe left behind. He needed to find the foot that fit this shoe.

When he found the foot that fit this shoe, he would have found Cinderella. The prince went from house to house, trying the shoe on different women, because he wanted to get to the person on whom the shoe fit. He finally came to Cinderella’s house, put the shoe on her foot, and he had found her.

He gave her a kiss, and you know how the story ends. It says … and they lived happily ever after.

A lot of us are living like Cinderella. We’re living as slaves, under the world, the flesh, and the Devil. Satan is holding us hostage. Maybe a few years ago you met the Prince of Peace, and He saved you, but you have gone back to living at the midnight hour, with that devil and his two daughters.

They have you trapped in slavery. But, Jesus knows where you are, and He knows how long you’ve been there.

When He comes knocking on your door, with those slippers, He’ll let you know He wants to get you up out of there. He doesn’t just want to bring His money to you, His castle to you, or His chariot to you, He wants to take you up out of there, and let you go live with Him. He wants to remove you from those premises, and give you a brand-new place to live. He wants to show you your new position, your new glory, and your new hope.

He wants to get you out of that slavery. He just doesn’t want to buy you a new dress, buy you a new coat, or buy you a new car; He wants to give you a new life. Suppose Cinderella had said, “Look, Prince. I like you, Prince.

I want your money. I want your chariot. I want your castle. I want your title.

But I don’t want to commit myself to you.” I am sure the prince would have found somebody else, because he wanted to find somebody whom he could love, not just somebody whom he could be used by. A lot of us haven’t had our blessing to come through because we want to use God; we don’t want God. God wants us to want Him, so that He can make us whole, so that when we connect He can say, happily ever after, because He has made us whole.