Mar 8 - 01 - John 3:16

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 

Bible Rank: 1

 

A little girl ran up to my wife, during our congregation's first year of AWANA. "Miss Mary Louise," she said, "I memorized my Bible verse: Jesus 3:16 - "For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish ... but have a really good live."

 

My wife hugged this little first grader and said, "Perfect."

 

John 3:16 is the most famous of all verses. And probably the most important. It has indeed been called: The Gospel in a Sentence. 

 

It speaks of ...

 

·         Who God is at his core? Love. 

·         What is God’s second key attribute? Generosity -- a giving which culminated with Jesus life-giving sacrifice upon the cross. 

·         What is the target of God's amazing love? The whole world.  (Don’t personalize this – yet. This is bigger than you. This is God's massive rescue plan for all of humanity ... across all generations. We make God small when it's just about us. This is huge!)

·         What does this gift do? It opens a door to eternal life … through Jesus the Son.

·         How do we access this gift? Through faith. (And here's where you can make this verse personal! Will you walk through this door? Will you accept Jesus as your Savior?)

 

Now, you got all that, right? You knew it already, didn't you?

 

But ... here's what you may not have known … and here's what a first-grader got right: Most of us assume that eternal life begins when we die and go up to heaven. No! It begins the moment we believe. 

 

Before we believed, death reigned in our lives. We were muddling through on our own power, doing the best we could on our own (hoping nothing too bad went wrong).

 

But the moment we first believed is the moment we start to live ... forever!

 

This is the moment when the Holy Spirit entered our life. He gives us love, joy, peace, and so much more. He shows us God's perspective, He connects us with God's wisdom, He comforts us in our sorrows, He intercedes through our prayers. 

 

As a six year old says, this is the moment when we began to have a "really good life." (It was "perfect," indeed!)

 

In Christ's Love,

a guy with a

really good life