For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life. (John 3:16 KJVA) John 3:16 "God so loved the world that he gave His only begotten Son." As we take a look at this, we must understand that "begotten" means "procreated or generated." Jesus was born of a woman yet, was not the seed of a man. Instead, He was the seed of God. He was "generated" by God and placed in the womb of a woman. This was a birth in the world but not of the world.
God did not love how the world had become but through benevolence He sent His Son. It was because of how we had become that this was done. He sent Jesus to us because we needed to be saved. He came to be the sacrifice for all mankind. He came not to condemn, rather to offer a way that we could be saved.
Another thing we must understand is that this is to "whosoever believeth." And what must we believe? We must believe that Jesus was the only begotten Son of God and that God sent Him to the world. Not that He sent Him to be part of the world, yet He was sent to the world. He was sent to offer salvation to all who believe in Him.
It is because of love that God sent Jesus. He sent Jesus because He desired for us to be happy even though we are sinners. God hates wickedness, yet He still has desires for all sinners. Just as we, as earthly parents, hate when our children do wrong we desire for them to be happy, productive children. We do not always approve of the conduct of our children, yet we always love them.
This is one that will hit many close to home. I am a child that most definitely fell into that category. I was out running around and doing things I should not have been doing. My parents, though they were disgusted by my conduct, never stopped loving me.
God is the same yesterday, today and tomorrow. He may not approve of the sinful conduct of our actions. But He loves us so much and so He made the ultimate sacrifice. He created a Son, placed that Son into a woman womb and had Him born of a woman. Jesus was normal in His life here on earth. He grew up the son of a carpenter and when the time was right He was led to begin His ministry, or His career if you will, here on earth.
"God sent His Son." Why did He send Him? He did not send Him to condemn the world. Instead, He sent Him to save the world.
In order to have condemnation there must be judgment. To condemn means to pronounce to be wrong. This requires us to look at judgment and get a complete understanding.
Matthew 7:1-2 Mat 7:1 Judge not, that ye be not judged. Mat 7:2 For with what judgment ye judge, ye shall be judged: and with what measure ye mete, it shall be measured to you again.
In Matthew 7:1-2 we are told that if we judge we shall be judged. It, however, takes it a step further. How we judge is how we will be judged.
God did not send Jesus to judge us and to condemn us. He had already judged and condemned us. He sent Jesus to offer salvation through the ultimate blood sacrifice. He sent Jesus to be the payment for all of our sins. He was sacrificed so we would no longer have to die. We now can have everlasting life because of the shed blood of Jesus Christ our Lord and Saviour.
We must stop judging and start offering solutions. God could have judged us and condemned us and offered no solution. Instead, He offered a solution in the way of the sacrifice of His only begotten Son. Now we must begin to do the same thing. We must begin to not just condemn, we need to offer a solution.
Suppose you are asked to sit on a jury, you listen to both sides present their case. Then you have the responsibility to render a judgment or decision. The trial doesn't end with just the condemnation part of the trial. It goes on to a sentencing phase. It is in this phase that the judge must give justice. This is where the judge must offer the solution to the judgment. The judge must look at all aspects of the case, those involved and other factors. This is supposed to be a just solution, but that in itself is another message. The judge then must, through a solution, hand out justice. The justice must be a fitting punishment for the criminal and at the same time justice for the victim. The judge will place the criminal in a prison for a period of time or maybe just place them on probation. In both cases it is supposed to serve as punishment for the crime. Then the judge may add restitution responsibility upon the criminal, to compensate the victim.
The sentence has been handed down, the criminal and the victim have been given their justice. It cannot stop there, it must continue to move to a solution phase. The judge must give justice to the victim and to the criminal by offering a solution. And, unfortunately, all too often the judicial system never makes it to the solution phase. The system doesn't offer a way to the criminal to be more than just a criminal. It, usually, only offers punishment. Again, I am trying not to get too technical because it really can be another message.
How, then, does God differ from man? God condemned us and judged us to be wicked. He then hands out just punishment and then He went on to give the solution. He gave His only Son that whosoever believed would not perish. God could have left it at condemnation and injustice. He could have only offered certain death.
"For God so loved the world He sent His Son." Whosoever believeth in Him is not necessarily condemned. What a huge statement this is for us to live by. God did not just condemn us, He offered all who would believe in Christ eternal life. He freed us from the condemnation. He gave the solution for the judgment of condemnation and gave us a new direction. He gave us the solution to the sinful life we lead. He gave us a way to be better and a way to receive eternal life. He did not make the payment hard on us. Most people look at justice as being cruel and inhumane to other human beings. They figure that justice has to be hard, mean, cruel, demoralizing, inhumane and eternal. This is because man is incapable of truly understanding the power of love. Instead they drive themselves on power of humility, of course not their humility, but rather the humility of others. Man's power trip is a death sentence waiting to be executed. Man is running down a road to certain death and condemnation and he is too ignorant to figure that out. He has not figured out that God is the almighty power, he has power over all mankind. Man think they have power and one could continue to laugh at the arrogant ignorance of them all.
Man is so wrapped up with things of the world they have no clue where they are headed. They have not realized that where they are headed they have no power, no money, no authority. They are headed to a desolate fiery tomb of destruction. Man has been given the direction and the guidance to prevail, prosper and have eternal riches beyond what one could ever imagine. Instead we want to be greedy, arrogant, ignorant, controlling, judge,,jury and executioner.
I would not want to be in those shoes. I like being the loving servant of my Lord and Saviour. I do not come to condemn, merely to show you the path to complete and total peace. I come to show you how to have an eternal life that is beyond what you could ever hold on earth. I come to show you that love is giving the ultimate sacrifice. Love is moving beyond the justice and to a solution. God is love and He showed us all how to love. It is your will, your choice what you are going to do with it. You can continue to be the hateful, greedy people of the world, or you can become the solution.
"Every one that doeth evil hates the light." In this verse it is laid out for us. It says we continue to do evil because we hate the light. Those that are evil will not come unto the light. We must stop enjoying the evil and remember that evil is only for a little while. It is because of man's ignorant, greedy ways that we are condemned. It is because we choose the evil ways of the world instead of the loving way of Christ. You can choose today an eternal richness or you can continue to be earthly rich. You can choose to believe in Christ or you can choose to believe the world. You can choose eternal life or eternal death. Which will you choose?
Pastor David Azbell
*******************************
The Universal Life Church is a comprehensive online seminary where we have multiple classes in Christianity, Wicca, Religious Philosophy, three courses in Metaphysics. a course in Buddhism, a re-vamped course on Shamanism, and much more.
The Universal Life Church is a comprehensive online seminary where we have classes in Christianity, Wicca, Paganism, two courses in Metaphysics and much more.
The ULC, run by Rev. Long, has created a chaplaincy program to help train our ministers. We also have a huge catalog of Universal Life Church materials. I've been ordained with the Universal Life Church for many years and it's Seminary since the beginning and have loved watching the continual growth of the seminary.
Try our new free toolbar at: ULC Toolbar
