Thoughts On: John 3:16

For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life. 

John 3:16, ESV

This verse has repeated itself through my life since I was a child. Part of me wanted to skip past it, because I've read it so many times that I'm not even sure what it means anymore, or why it matters. But then I began to dig in, and I realized that there is more truth in this one verse than in so much that I have read in the past two weeks. This one verse brings the life I forgot about, and the truth I so desperately need to hear right now. 

I wondered to a friend recently whether our country happened to be in it's regular state of distress, or whether this summer held a different kind of unrest - something more sinister. I'm not sure what is going on in our country and our world right now, but it frightens me and I know it frightens others. And I think the same lie sometimes rolls around all of our heads: God is indifferent. 

It's not true, but we act like it is. Like God does not care about the evil, as if he is turning a blind eye and only focusing on the rich and the well-put-together. But it's not true. The truth is that God loves the world. 

God loves us. He created this seemingly crazy earth we live on, and he cares. He cared so much he sent his only Son to save us from our own destruction. Now, I'm not sure how to live this out quite yet, or what this means for our fallen and broken land. I don't know how to love people very well, but I'd like to learn to love how God loves. I think it's important. I think it will take time. 

But I think there is also another truth, here, and another lie. One that gives us hope while we take on this world and try to communicate God's love. I think a lot of the time we get stuck believing that this is all there is. That this world is the only thing we will ever know. The problem with that is not that this world is awful - I think there are incredibly beautiful pieces of our world, and they are worth cherishing. I think the problem is that, deep down, we know there's something else. 

The truth is that we can live forever. 

The book of John tells us right here, plain and clear, that the result of Jesus's death and resurrection, and the result of us believing that he is Lord, is that we will live eternally with him. The paradox of these two truths confuses me and exhilarates me: God loves the world, and there will also be another. We get to have both. We get to be here, and we get to fall in love with it all, and then we get to go there, and fall in love with perfection. I think that's called a win.