John 3.16

I had the opportunity to speak at my church last night and it was both totally amazing and terrifying at the same time.  I love my church very much and feel any opportunity to speak there is such an honor, but also they know everything about me since I've gone there for so long, which is what makes it terrifying.  

I talked about John 3.16.  As I was studying, God just showed me once again how amazing his love is.  It's so hard for us to comprehend that someone as awesome as God would love us to the point that he would give something as important as his only Son, but that's exactly what he did.  I'm posting my points to my talk on here with a few revisions, hoping that someone will get it.  

John 3.16     For God so loved the world, that He gave his one and only Son, that whosoever believes in Him should not perish but have eternal life.

1.     God SO loved us...

What does that word "so" mean?  It means that God didn't just love us.  He loves us so much that it moved Him to action.  He loves us enough to not let us sit in our sin but instead intervened on our behalf.  Genesis 19 tells the story of God destroying Sodom and Gomorrah.  In verse 16, the two angels tell Lot and his family to flee the city because it's about to be destroyed.  In a move that dumbfounds me to this day, the Bible says that Lot hesitated leaving.  Instead of the angels immediately leaving and letting him and his family be destroyed, the angels grabbed them by the hand and led them out.  Why?  Because it says, "...the Lord was merciful to them."  That's God SO loving us.

2.     That He GAVE...

A God that would give to us is a concept that is exclusive to Christianity.  Other religions serve gods who are unknowable, meaning forget having a relationship with them, and require all kinds of rules and regulations for you to even make it to heaven, and then you're still not guaranteed to make it.  Only Jehovah would show us the kind of love that required Him sacrificing something as important as His Son!  

3.     That Whosoever... 

Leave it to God to use a word that can only encompass every single person in the history of mankind.  I don't care who you are, what your title is, how much money you make, what you look like or what you've done, there is nobody that is excluded from the whosoever concept.  

Remember, God loves us and believes in us enough that He paid the ultimate price for all of us whosoevers!