...God loves...

16 “For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him may not perish but may have eternal life”  John 3:16.

Is there a more beloved text in all of the Bible?   What does this text disclose to all who love it so deeply?    It tells us that there is no salvation apart from God.   But it also tells us that we can’t ever do enough or deserve eternal life, for eternal life is completely initiated and accomplished by God.   In no way was God ever satisfied with our best intentions and choices.  And be clear — it was all rooted in the love of God, His love for every single person He ever created.  God is not acting on His own behalf, but on our behalf, and all because of His “steadfast love that endures forever” Psalm 136.   It is God’s love that motivates everything that God does. He never hits us over the head to move us — He so loves the world!

God just doesn’t love the United States, nor does He just bless America.  

He loves the WORLD and blesses the WORLD.   God doesn’t just love good people or people who only love Him.  He loves ALL people, believers and non-believers, saints and the most hideous sinners.   There is not a single person God does not love and for whom He did not die.   He loves everyone and died for everyone.   You and I cannot do anything to change the love of God — and thank God for that!   We cannot get God to love us more than already does — because He loves us all to death!

This text also speaks about believing in God.   To believe in God is to believe in everything Jesus said about God.   Believing means believing that God loves us and cares for us and desires to forgive us.   For sure God is a judge, but He is a judge who desires that all of His children return to Him forever.   He wants us all to come back home — to Him.   

We must also believe that Jesus is the Son of God, and to know Jesus is know God, and to know the mind of Jesus is to know the mind of God, and that we know the absolute truth about God because we know Jesus.  

We are compelled to take Jesus at His Word and to believe that Jesus is who He says He is.   We are to obey Jesus in every detail of life.

In this text John also refers to eternal life.  Eternal life is life with God.  

Hell is eternal life without God!  Eternal life with God give us peace.  

Eternal life demands that we forgive others as God forgives us.   Eternal life gives us peace with one another because we love others and forgive others as God loves us and forgives us.   Eternal life also gives us peace with our own life, even in the midst of the greatest pain and suffering.  When we believe God is who He says He is then we have peace with our life. And we have peace with who we are because we face our sin and weaknesses with God. The peace we experience here in this life, of course, does not compare with the peace to come in eternal life.

So dear friends, let us turn to God today and thank Him for His love, and pray that we may love as He loves.

Lord, Jesus Christ, Son of the Living God, have mercy on me a sinner.