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This is how God loved the world...

God does love the world, but have you ever wanted Him to love the world in a different way? Maybe you’d like God to take away all the pain or bring in world peace? How about heal your family member? Or you? Or bring justice against the people that have hurt you? Or to eradicate COVID-19? I would be on board with all of those! But the Bible doesn’t say that God loves the world in these ways. God doesn’t do the things we want Him to do. God does what He wants to do, according to who He is, and in His perfect timing.

When we read about God in the Bible, we discover that He is just. God will judge all sin, and all of us—great or small—will stand before Him. One day, we will enter His courtroom. He will make things right, but all of us are in the wrong. The Bible shows us that all have sinned—we are guilty before Him. But right now He is showing grace to each one of us because we need it!

We may think that God’s love is shown in strange ways. He’s not solving our society’s problems (or even a pandemic) right now because that isn’t our number one problem in His sight. God loved the world—and wants to heal us from sin. But how?

He gave His one and only Son...

God the Father and His Son are equal and love each other endlessly. Jesus means everything to God the Father. Everything. And what did God do? He poured out His judgment against sin on Jesus at the cross. God gave up His Son. Why? Because He loves us. The love of God is “giving,” not “taking.” Let that sink in. God gave everything precious to Him, emptying heaven so that you and I would never have to answer for our sin. God the Father gave Jesus up, so that sinners could receive His love! This is amazing!

You might be asking, if God already gave His Son, Jesus, then aren’t we all already going to heaven? Who is this love for?

So that everyone who believes in Him...

This is for “whoever believes.” It’s for anyone—no matter where you come from or what you’ve done—but you must believe in Him.

Just like our hands are not clean of germs and viruses without using soap, our souls will never be saved from the just anger of God against sin if we do not trust Jesus Christ.

But why Jesus? Jesus is unique because He is the only one who did not sin. Look at His life—He never did anything wrong. Just like you and I can’t wash our dirty hands with dirt, we can’t “wash” our soul with our own goodness or anyone else’s who is also infected with sin. The cure only comes from one who lived a perfect life—Jesus Christ. We must trust Him.

Will not perish...

Why would we perish? It’s because we all have sinned, and if we’re honest, we all know it. We are not perfect. If we claim to be sinless, it’s just like we’re putting on a fake “Zoom suit” (a false velcro shirt that looks like a suit and tie only from the front). We may fool others, but we can’t fool God. God sees the whole picture of our souls—every lie, every jealous or lustful thought, every bitter refusal to forgive those that have hurt us, and so much more. These are the things that bring death. These things that we are so accustomed to in our world are so offensive to a perfect God. He simply cannot ignore them and let us into heaven—it would be like showing up to a wedding in that Zoom suit and sweatpants! We need God to clothe us with righteousness.

But have eternal life.

This is good news! We can have confidence that our sins are forgiven through the promise of this beautiful verse. Jesus Himself said these words two thousand years ago. He guarantees that this promise is true. He suffered and died for the world that God so loved. Then He rose again from the dead to prove that the work was finished and accepted by God.

Today, He is waiting with open arms for anyone (yes, anyone!) who will humbly trust Him and only Him for forgiveness of their sins. You don’t need to perish; you can have eternal life. Won’t you trust Him today and have this peace forever?

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