In Touch - Nov. 28, 2008

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Published Nov 26, 2008

November 28
Responding to God’s Love
John 3:16-21

God is love. Most likely we have heard these words from 1 John 4:8. But do we truly understand what they mean?

John 3:16 sums it up: God loved vile, sinful, rebellious humanity so much that He came to earth in human flesh and died a gruesome death to save us. This is no shallow love.

Some people question Jesus’ sacrifice, though. They think, Certainly the Lord could have come up with a different way to offer salvation. He is God, after all, so shouldn’t He be able to do all things? They fail to consider two of His unchangeable attributes.

First, the Lord is holy by nature. This means that He cannot look upon sin with approval, so He must condemn transgression. Second, God is just. As a result, all wrongdoing—without exception—must be punished (Rom. 6:23). The Lord’s every action must be consistent with His nature.

We all fall short of God’s perfect holiness, and He is unable to accept us in our fallen state (Rom. 3:23). But our heavenly Father desires an everlasting relationship with us. So He provided the solution by sending His Son Jesus to earth—to live as a man and die on the cross. This is the ultimate expression of love. As 1 John 4:10 states, “In this is love, not that we loved God, but that He loved us and sent His Son to be the propitiation for our sins.”

The wise will accept the free gift of salvation. That is, they will receive Jesus as their personal Lord and Savior and commit to follow Him. What is your response to His amazing love?

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