This is how God loved the world.
Day Five: For God so loved the world, that he gave his only son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life. – John 3:16
Today is a special day. It marks the 20th year of my true conversion to Christ. I had grown up in the church, was on a mission field with my parents, and therefore was well-acquainted with Bible and religion. What and where I was lacking was in this place of being born by water and the Spirit. I had heard a good deal of the Bible taught, I had asked Jesus into my heart and even been baptized as a youngster. There were times where I sought God a bit more than others, but mostly I was distracted and disengaged. The Gospel was not changing me, or I was not willing to be changed by it.
Twenty years ago, though, I had a dear friend (and now wife, praise God!) who re-introduced me to the saving grace of Jesus. I was a good deal more desperate and required a greater overhaul. Back in the early 90′s I was a foolish teenager more engaged by the desires of the flesh than anything God-sized. Pleasing peers, chasing girls, enjoying drink and drug, I was growing – just in all the wrong ways.
As I was considering the verse to memorize today I began wondering what verse I had first learned in life. Almost instantly I was drawn to this flagship of a verse, John 3:16. What love, what promise.
How do I know God loves the world? He first loved me by sending me his son. He helped (and helps) me to believe so that I would not perish but have life everlasting. Twenty years of my life, rarely easy or having gone exactly as I saw fit, have more than proven to me that God is love and love is real. My heart has been turned inside out by the seemingly invisible hands of grace. Where would I be without God? I can’t even begin to imagine. Thank you, God! Thank you, Jesus! Thank you, Holy Spirit! The most vital move of my life was to actually believe that God cared about insignificant me and was calling me into great significance with him.
If you do not know God, or if you have stumbled far from him, I urge you – speak out these words; “God, I hear that you loved the world, that you gave the son, but I struggle to believe. If you are real, if you are truly good and God, please reveal Jesus to me and give me eternal life. Send the Holy Spirit helper to help me. If you are who you say you are, here is my heart, open it to a reality I’ve never known. Save me!”
For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him. Whoever believes in him is not condemned, but whoever does not believe is condemned already, because he has not believed in the name of the only Son of God. And this is the judgment: the light has come into the world, and people loved the darkness rather than the light because their works were evil. For everyone who does wicked things hates the light and does not come to the light, lest his works should be exposed. But whoever does what is true comes to the light, so that it may be clearly seen that his works have been carried out in God. – John 3:17-21