He is jealous for me
Love's like a hurricane, I am a tree
Bending beneath the weight of His wind and mercy
When all of a sudden, I am unaware of these afflictions eclipsed by glory
and I realize just how beautiful You are and how great your affections are for
me.
As I was running on the treadmill this morning I was reading the book
of John and something hit me like it never has before. I’ve probably read this
chapter a hundred times and this one sentence in the chapter is the most famous
on earth! But this morning I saw it in completely a different light.
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
Yeah I know we have all heard this verse!
John 3:16 has been written
everywhere from bathroom urinals to fat guys bare bellies at football games!
But let me clue you in on some of the context that you may not have
known.
The start of John chapter 3 is all about Jesus talking to a religious
leader named Nick about what it takes to have eternal life. Jesus is laying out
step by step this radical yet simple idea of being born again, but this time
being born of something supernatural instead of just something physical. Jesus
does this with compassion in His voice. He really wants Nick to have eternal
life.
But to get the surreal part of this story, take a step back and think
for a minute.
Jesus…the Son of God…was sent here to earth for the sole purpose
of saving mankind, even though we are the ones who turned our backs on God.
Here is God is a physical body talking to a man who could not be more lost even
though he is everyday surrounded by religion. Jesus wasn’t angry with him.
Jesus wasn’t preachy to him. Jesus didn’t have somewhere else that He would
have rather been. No in this moment at that second he would have stayed as long as it
took to show Nick the way to eternal life.
I believe that is what John was seeing as he breaks into the story
with his own narrative in verse 16.
John interrupts the story just to let the
reader know that this is the kind of love that our God has for us. That despite
our thinking we know it all, He still takes the time to lovingly explain to us.
Despite our idea that we can save ourselves, He still steps out of Heaven to
earth to show us that we can’t, but that He will.
John was no stranger to the love of God. He was Jesus’ best friend on
earth. He was with Jesus everyday and saw this love first hand. But the day that most showed His love
was the day He fulfilled His plan and went to the Cross.
He took our evil and carried it up a hill and died in our place even
though he had never done anything wrong.
God gave up His first-born son to die, so that we all would have a
chance to be His children again.
God was jealous for us!!!
He wasn’t going to let anything or anyone steal us from Him. He was
going to fight for us! God fought for us because He sooo loved us.
You see John didn’t right these words in today’s culture of text
messaging and cell phones, because if he had he would have written John 3:16
just a little bit different.
Instead of saying,
“For God so loved the world”, he would have written
“For God SOOO loved the world”!
Because there is love…
…like I love ice cream
…like I love going to the beach
…like I love watching over the top comic book movies
And then there is sooo love…
That’s the kind of love that knows no limit. That’s the kind of
self-sacrificing, all encompassing love that is beyond my understanding. Even
though I am pretty sure that I have never sooo loved anyone or anything, God
has given me the chance to be sooo loved by Him.
So why am I wasting my time giving my love to anything else?
I spend my days chasing after money, success, comfort and pleasure. In
my life I give my love to things like food and tv and work. Then somewhere way
down the list I take time to give some love to God. But I struggle to ‘so love’
God in just a fraction of the way that He ‘sooo loved’ me.
I want to sooo love God each day of my life.
I want to show Him that
what He did for me wasn’t for nothing! I want to show Him that even though I
will never fully understand the price that was paid to save me that my life
will be a love song lived for Him.
To a father there is nothing sweeter than when your kids say, “I love
you”.
I remember when my little man first said that he loved me. Well he’s
two so it wasn’t quite the most clear sentence, but after two years of telling
him I loved him every time I held him and kissed him and played with him, one
day when I said,
“Gabe…I love you!”, He responded quickly with, “love…love…”
and that right there was enough. My heart was overflowing with just two words
in broken English!
I am pretty sure that’s how God felt the first time I told Him that I
loved Him.
and I told Him… I love you…in my own broken English through my tears.
My God, my Father smiled and cried knowing that for all of His chasing
He had finally caught me!
As you go throughout today, take time to embrace the truth that God
Sooo Loves You.
And find ways in your own life to sooo love Him back.
And if you have never felt God’s love before I encourage you to look
right behind you and see the God that has been lovingly chasing you, for your
whole life.
– John 3:16-17
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