My devotions for today included the gospel reading of John 3:16-21…
Of course we all know John 3:16 – For God so loved the World that He sent His only Son… We see it at sporting events, and every where. This is one of the verses that almost everybody knows, but do any of us really get it? I for the longest time was hung up on the loved. This is an aorist tense. To be specific it is a 3rd person singular Aorist Active Indicative. And you are probably saying, “I would be hung up on that to…” No really this says something important for the love of God. This means at one point in the past God loved you so much that he did something that still has effect on you today, and will forever. At one point God loved you and that love has effected your life since that point and it will always effect your life. That point for me has always been the cross. Where Jesus died for me. Now we could argue from Jeremiah that it was the point in time that God consecrated us as a prophet to the nations. The point in time He knew us before he formed us in our mother’s womb.
But here is something new that I have discovered from John 3:16. The world. For God so loved the World. Not you. Not me. He loved the world. And not just any world. He loved τον κοσμον. The world in John is that which hates God (see 16:33, 17:9-19), so maybe a better translation of this verse would be “For God so Loved the God hating world that he sent his only son.” And he did not ask us about is. He did not ask our permission to love us. He loved us, even when he could not because of our sin. He loved us even though he knew we would not follow where he lead us. He loved us regardless of how we would react. God loves us whether we like it or not.
I’ll end here with a quote from David Lose, “God’s judgment is revealed: God loves this world, even the God-hating world that crucified the Lord of glory. At this place in our Lenten journey, we would do well to pray that by the gift of the untamed Spirit we might perceive in Jesus’ cross God’s redemptive act and in this way be drawn into fellowship with all who dare believe in Jesus and, indeed, the whole world that God loves so much!” Amen.
aSacredRebel 