Equipping · Evangelizing · Glorifying

"For God so loved the world, that He gave His only Son..."

Think for a minute about the sacrifice that God made for us.  For me and for you. He, who loves righteousness and purity, sent His Son into a place so wicked He could not even look upon Him there. And it was His only Son.

We think so often that perhaps we would be willing to give our lives for someone very dear to us. However, that is not what God did. He gave the life of the one dearest to Himself—for a people who hated Him, who rejected His gift and turned their backs on His love. Think of the person closest to you—your absolute best friend in the world. And think about sending that person to die for people who despise you. Hard, isn’t it? Who among us would do it? And yet that is what God did for us

And we add insult upon insult. First, He sends His only begotten Son to die for a wicked, spiteful people. God cannot even look upon that people because they are so full of sin and unrighteousness. Not one among them is pure enough and righteous enough to commune with God. But He loves them so much that He gives His greatest Treasure to them—His Son. They hate and kill Him—which was God’s plan anyway—but they like to think they are doing what they want to do, not that they are fulfilling some predetermined plan of the Almighty God. After they kill Him, He conquers death and Hell, bringing all things under His feet. He rises from the grave, alive and powerful. Yet these people, the ones who killed Him by their words and actions, reject Him again. They say He is a lunatic. Though they have seen His power with their own eyes, have felt His healing touch, they refuse to ascribe divinity to actions. Oh, they say that He is a “good man”—but can merely a “good man” do all this?

The scene changes. It is now 2000 years later. Men still refuse this gift. Not all men, but many. They scoff at His words of love for them. They change His name into a common word; they curse with it and at it. They say that this God could not possibly control all things, that they could not possibly trust Him to be wise enough and good enough to care. They say that this God, who gave His only Son, could not possibly love them at all. Even those who accept the fact that God loved the world enough to give this Treasure to them, they refuse to believe that He still cares for them. That He wants their lives to turn out well. That He wants to satisfy their deepest needs and unfulfilled longings.

They say that this God, who so loved the world that He gave His only Son, cannot be trusted.

Even after accepting the gift of eternal life that He has offered them, they turn their backs on His wisdom, thinking that they know better than He does how to live their lives. They walk their own path. Though they are cleansed by the blood of His Son, they have so marred the name of Christ that God still cannot look upon them. He knows them, yes. But He is deeply grieved by their willfulness, their pride. Their unbelief. They do not believe in this One who gave them All.

For God so loved the world that He gave His only Son.