John 3:12-17

The Father did not send His Son to condemn the world but that through Him they could be saved. No greater love exists!! We live because He died in our place!

1 John 4:10 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.

That at my core, I touch the capacity to grieve and to give, to tremble and to be courageous, to doubt and to be faithful, to be uncomfortable and to love, to be watchful and to be generous…
to be fully human and fully alive…
compassionate, patient, resilient, kind, unselfish, responsible, spirited, high-minded, a listening heart. 

“Well, nobody else can live the life you live. And even though no human being is perfect, we always have the chance to bring what's unique about us to live in a redeeming way.” Fred Rogers

With a few exceptions, I do my best to see those around me with Mr. Rogers' lens: Inside of everyone a light shines. Inside of everyone, there is a sound that no one else can make. Yes... A song that truly saves people.

Terry Hershey “Sabbath Moments” 

We are all made in God’s image and in his likeness. Sin has distorted this image, but it has not destroyed it. Our moral purity has been tainted, but do not think for a moment that God has rescinded his promise or altered his plan. He still creates people in his image to bear his likeness and reflect his glory.

As we fellowship with God, read his Word, obey his commands, and seek to reflect his character, something wonderful emerges.  We say things God would say; we do things God would do. We forgive, we share, and we love. In time an image begins to appear. God’s goal is simply to rub away anything that is not of him so the inborn image of God can be seen in us.

Because God’s promises are unbreakable our hope is unshakable!

Max Lucado

John 3:12-17

12 If I have told you earthly things and you do not believe, how will you believe if I tell you heavenly things? 13 No one has ascended to heaven but He who came down from heaven, that is, the Son of Man who is in heaven. 14 And as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must the Son of Man be lifted up, 15 that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have eternal life. 16 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. 17 For God did not send His Son into the world to condemn the world, but that the world through Him might be saved. 18 “He who believes in Him is not condemned; but he who does not believe is condemned already, because he has not believed in the name of the only begotten Son of God. The New King James Version

“The Son of Man be lifted up” alludes to both the crucifixion and the exaltation of Jesus in His death and resurrection. 

This verse presents a concise summary of the gospel message, tying the events of Jesus’ death to God’s love for the world He created. The statement is remarkable in its depiction of divine care for the entire world—not just His chosen people, Israel. The Greek term used here is monogenēs, meaning “one of a kind.” At one time, it was presumed that the term derived from the Greek words monos (“one” or “only”) and gennaō (“to beget”). The translation “only begotten” is based on this assumption. Subsequent manuscript discoveries produced evidence that the term actually comes from monos and the noun genē (“kind” or “type”). The term monogenēs therefore refers to uniqueness and has no inherent reference to chronology or origin. 

Conversely, the Nicene Creed used this term to assert Jesus’ inherent relationship to the Father: that as the eternal Son He is “begotten [gennēthenta], not made” by the Father. Jesus’ reflection and representation of the Father is complete. As one sent by God, Jesus fully represented Him on earth. Faithlife Study Bible

Nicodemus, referring to the new birth, asks, “How can these things be?” Here Jesus answers the question. New birth is by the Son, by the Cross, and by faith. Every time the words lifted up occur in the Gospel of John there is a reference to Jesus’ death. When Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, those who looked at it lived. So it is with the Son of Man.

God’s love is not restricted to any one nation or to any spiritual elite. World here may also include all of creation. At His first coming, Jesus came so that the world through Him might be saved. When Jesus comes again, He will come in judgment upon those who refused His offer of salvation. The NKJV Study Bible

Numbers 21:9 So Moses made a bronze serpent, and put it on a pole; and so it was, if a serpent had bitten anyone, when he looked at the bronze serpent, he lived.

1 John 4:9 In this the love of God was manifested toward us, that God has sent His only begotten Son into the world, that we might live through Him.