John 3:16

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.

          This passage of scripture is probably the most known and most quoted out of any other passage in the Bible. Because of this we often forget the power this statement represents. In this passage we see a summary of the entire Gospel message, just like “Love God and Love people” sums up the law and the commandments. “For God so Loved the world.”

          We need to understand how powerful this statement is and what it means to us. As we begin to look at God’s Love we see that everything that was created was through Love. And it is this same Love that makes the foundation on which we stand to reach God.

          Paul reminds us in Ephesians that we are “rooted and established in Love” (Ephesians 3:17) Then in John’s letter first letter to the church He tells us that “God is Love” (1 John 4:8). And again in Paul’s letter to the saints in Rome we see that he is convinced that “nothing else in all of creation will be able to separate us from the Love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord” (Romans 8:38-39).

          So we see that God is Love and Love is God. To Love is to be like God and God’s Love made a way for us to come to Him. Because He Loves us and did not want us to perish (because we were sinners and the penalty for sin is death (Romans 6:23)), He sent His Son to die for us.

          Jesus was righteous and sin free, so He was able to pay the penalty of death for us all. Now that work is done and completed. The penalty for our sin has now been paid and our position with God is now up to us. We must make a decision to believe in Jesus, because it is only through Him that we can receive the Love of God.