John 3:16

God Wants You

If you grew up in a church, or if you've ever watched a Sunday football game, you are probably familiar with the Bible verse John 3:16. This is probably one of the most popular verses in the Bible. I had this verse memorized when I was a child, as many of you reading this probably did, too. If your memory is a little rusty, this is how it goes:

"For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life." 

We all know what John 3:16 says. The question is: Do we all know what John 3:16 means? Do we know what God is telling us with this wildly popular, wonderfully simple verse? I don't think many of us have a true grasp on what this verse says. This one verse contains almost everything you need to know about God: God is love, He loves you like crazy, and He wants a relationship with you. 

Basically, John 3:16 is saying that God loves you so much, He sent Jesus, His Son, to this earth to rescue you so that you could have Life, eternal Life. 

That sounds simple doesn't it? It is simple. But, do you get it? You need to get it. This verse is too rich, too alive, to miss the treasures that are told here. Everything you need to know about God is right here, in this verse. Let's go treasure hunting and take a closer look and try to discover all that this verse has to say.

"For God so loved the world..." - God loved, and loves, the world. The whole world. Not just certain people, not just a certain race, not just your cousin. God loves the whole world, God loves you. 

"God so loved..." - I think here, the little word "so" means "so greatly", or "so intensely", or "so passionately". God desires, God loves, God melts for us, the world. If we were to look no further into this verse we would know one thing: God truly loves us - all of us.

"...that He gave His only begotten Son..." - What does this mean? God gave us, sent, fathered, Jesus Christ, here, on this earth, for us. Jesus is the Son of God - God in the flesh. God, the creator of the universe, became a man and walked around on this earth in a human body because He loved us "so" much.

"...that whoever believes in Him should not perish..." - There is a lot of information to absorb right here. This says that whoever believes in Jesus should not perish. "Whoever believes" means whoever, anyone, all who believe in Jesus. God is not partial to any man, woman, Jew, or Gentile. Whoever believes in Jesus should not perish! 

Perish means to die or be destroyed. This part of the verse has, at times, been used to invoke fear in people to convert them, or turn them, to Jesus. And, perhaps rightly so. After all, no one wants to be destroyed. But using fear to turn people to God, was not God's intent. This verse was not meant to be used as a weapon of fear. This verse was meant to be a weapon of love. 

The truth is, we were separated from God! We were already dead, already headed towards destruction, because of sin. God did not want us, any of us, to perish! He sent Jesus, His Son, to rescue us! This is a verse of love, not fear! All we have to do is believe in Jesus, that He is the Son of God, God in the flesh, and we will not perish. We don't have to beg, borrow, or plead in fear for our salvation! God is love. "There is no fear in love; but perfect love cast out fear..." - 1 John 4:18  

This whole verse is oozing with love and nothing but love. We just have to believe, put our faith, in Jesus, the Son of God, and we will not perish. That is awesome! But, it gets even better. This last part is probably the most wonderful part of the entire verse, and the part I believe is most often missed: 

"...should not perish, but have everlasting life." 

Do you know what this means? I didn't. Most of my life, I was told, or chose to believe, that I would receive everlasting life - after I died. Once I died, I would spend eternity in Heaven. That is what I always believed. That is true, but it is not the whole truth. The verse clearly says "...whoever believes in Him should not perish, but HAVE everlasting life." Have is present tense. Have is now. Everlasting life is now, here, on this earth. We do not have to wait until we die to have everlasting life. Once we put our faith in Jesus, the Son of God, we receive everlasting life immediately. We become alive to God. In fact, we become a child of God. 

How can you experience everlasting life here, in this world? It may help to know what everlasting life truly is: Jesus says, in John 17:3, "And this is eternal life, that they might know You the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom You have sent." Everlasting life is knowing God. It is relationship with God. You have to get this: God did not send His Son just to keep you out of Hell. God sent Jesus Christ so that you could have a relationship with Him. He loves you.  

That is the whole point of John 3:16! God sent His Son, Jesus Christ, here to this world, to rescue us from our sins so that we could have a relationship with Him. God loves us "so" much, that He wants to spend time with us. He wants us to spend time with Him. Can you imagine? God, who is totally complete, whole, perfect, and lacking nothing, wants to spend time with us, with you, with me. What kind of God would want that? A God of love: our God. 

He loves you so much that He humbled Himself, became a man, to be mocked, ridiculed, and killed by His own creations, just so you would not die an eternal death, just so you could walk in relationship with Him. This is mind blowing. God, our God, sacrificed His perfect Son, for our imperfect selves because He truly loves us and all He wants is for us to love Him back. What kind of God would do that? A God of love: our God. 

Now think about this: God loves us so much that He even gives us the choice to choose Him or reject Him. He is not the God of "turn or burn." Yes, that is a consequence of not choosing Him. But God offers Himself to us in love. He is trying to melt our hearts so that we simply choose Him, not scare us to "life." He does not force Himself on us. He simply says, "I love you. I'm crazy about you. Will you trust me? Will you spend time with me? Will you love me?" 

How could anyone not want to get to know a God like that? How could anyone not help but be swept away and melted by such an amazing love? God is LOVE. The kind of love that will set your heart on fire if you let it. 

"For God so loved you, that He gave you His only begotten Son, that if you believe in Him, you will not perish, but have everlasting life."

Do you have everlasting life? Do you know God? God wants us to know Him intimately. If we can learn so much about God from one verse, can you imagine what we could learn about God from the rest of the Bible? If we dove in and discovered the depths of God's love for us, our lives would change forever. We would know what everlasting life truly is. We would find ourselves in the richest, most loving relationship that is beyond all human description. We would know God.