John 3:16 is one of the first verses I memorized. On command, most people who went to, grew up in or even visited church a few times can tell you what it says. For those who may not know it says, ““For God so loved the world,[a] that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life.” It is our guidebook to spending eternity in heaven. Beautifully simple. But, instead of appreciating the expense paid by God and Jesus, I think we have made the story of salvation about ourselves. The memorization of the verse has been the equivalent of chewing the flavor out of a stick of gum. The potency is gone.
While working through my bible study today, I learned about covenant. God made covenant with the Israelites through Abraham, Noah, David and so on and so forth. The covenants promised long life, land and most importantly, His love. His steadfast and faithful love. This covenant love is called hesed in the bible. It is love AND kindness, lovingkindness. This was part of the covenants that God would make with His people. The problem was, they kept breaking covenant with God.
The Israelites had a hard time holding up their part of the covenants with God. Fear, anxiety, and general sin would move them into a space and actions of disobedience. And The Lord wanted a better way to fulfill the requirements. It had to be Jesus.
The story of Jesus being our savior is not about how we gained accessibility to heaven through a divine act. It is about the story of God wanting desperately to stay in covenant with the people he loved so much, He gave his son to complete the assignment. He did not want there to be more chances for us to fail and fail and fail. He wanted to make it easy to share His lovingkindness with us. So that we can never lose it. Ever. We just have to accept Jesus as our stand-in with the covenant. That is it. Done.
When we accept Jesus as our savior, that has so much weight. We are letting Jesus save us from failing to keep covenant. Jesus kept it perfectly and finished it for us. God can love us and Jesus has saved us.
When we make the story about memorization or a mere guidepost on our path to heaven, we truly lose sight of the magnificent and glorious act done on our behalf. It’s not really about the eternal life promised to us, which is wonderful. Don’t get me wrong. It’s about how God wanted to be able to love us fully, unwaveringly, and freely. For Him to do that, He gave Jesus. This is Good News.
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