Especially during this season, we need to recognize we’ve already received the ultimate
I don’t know if there’s a clearer example of God’s commitment to us and to the world than this single verse from John. For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life. (John 3:16)
To begin with, John writes that this is literally how much God loves us. Not just the “us” of our church, not just the “us” of our nation and not just the “us” of any other type of group we might try to encompass but the whole world. God loves the people of this entire planet so much that he gave us the greatest gift a father could ever give, his son.
This wasn’t his seventh son or his third or even second, this was his only son. John says “one” just so we don’t miss it and so we know there wouldn’t be any more to follow and hadn’t been any before. Imagine having something so precious that there’s only one of them in the world. Then, imagine giving that one, unique thing away to an entire world, many of whom don’t and won’t know you because they choose not to. Can you grasp that? I’m a dad. We have three kids, and I can’t for a second imagine giving one of them up to another person or group that loved them, let alone to a group that would ultimately reject and kill them. God does that and yet he goes beyond this gift of his son to offer us even more.
God says that if we believe in his Son we will have eternal life and once again it’s not a chosen few it’s “whoever” believes. God doesn’t say we have to be perfect, he doesn’t say we have to even be good. What he does say is that we have to believe. If we believe, if we take this one additional step it is promised to us; we’ll never die. I don’t know about you but that seems like a huge reward for our belief that Jesus was God’s son. It seems like quite a benefit for believing in a man whose existence is thoroughly documented even by secular resources. And it looks like the ultimate gift for accepting that this man who taught and exemplified a life of love and died an awful death, rose on the third day and walked among us once again to personify the promise.
Yes, God has shown us how much he loves us and he continues to show us. He has promised us the ultimate victory over death if we believe in is only son. I hope you see that and believe in it. It’s simple and it makes all the difference.
I hope this is a gift you’ll accept and that you’ll take the time to unwrap it and appreciate what we’ve all been given. If you would like to read more you can head to my blog by clicking here. Please share this around to your friends if they might benefit from it. I hope they’ll like it and subscribe to my blog for free. Subscribers receive an email on Saturdays with links to the week’s posts, nothing more. I never sell or share emails so there’s no worries about getting a bunch of spam. You can subscribe to my blog by clicking this or at the home page.