God So Loved….
Happy Valentine’s Day! How many dozens of roses and boxes of chocolate will be given to our sweethearts today? The real story of the man with the name of Valentine is far from how it is romanticized today, but nonetheless it has become the day that we traditionally celebrate and share love with that special someone in our lives. While you are giving or receiving a special gift of love today, never forget the greatest gift of love that the world was given. Jesus
What is love from God’s perspective? This verse in John has become one of the most quoted of all scripture; maybe as much as “The Lord is my Shepherd in Psalm 23. In order to fully understand this scripture we need to know the context in which Jesus spoke it. It begins with verse 1 when a Pharisee by the name of Nicodemus came to Jesus by night. Why at night? His status as a religious leader would not allow him to ask the deep longing questions of his heart in a public setting….he needed a secret one on one with Jesus. Just as each one of us does.
After sharing the profound truth of the need to be “born again” spiritually with Nicodemus, he still could not fully grasp what this meant, “how can these things be?” Nicodemus only knew the letter of the law, yet he recognized that Jesus was far more than a Rabbi. A deep spiritual hunger had been stirred within him that he could not understand, yet Jesus lovingly and patiently began to peel back the layers of the law to reveal the hidden truths in the Old Testament that spoke of Him. “And as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must the Son of Man be lifted up, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have eternal life.”
When God’s people were being bitten by fiery serpents in the wilderness because of their constant rebellion and grumbling, the LORD had Moses make a fiery serpent and set it on a pole….when those who had been bitten looked upon it, they would live and not die. Jesus was making the connection for Nicodemus with His Crucifixion that would soon take place. The rebellion and sin that the world had been bitten by, needed the ultimate sacrifice to be lifted up; once and for all.
It was then that Jesus spoke the words of John 3:16, “For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whosoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life.” It would take the “lifting up” to break the curse of sin. Lifted up means to elevate and exalt. How does being crucified elevate and exalt? How does that equate to love? All the animal sacrifices were a temporary fix. There needed to be the spotless Lamb of God as the perfect sacrifice for all eternity.
God’s love gave and continues to give. His love is the Greek word, Agapao. It is the active love of God for His Son and His people…even His enemies. Gave means to bestow, deliver, granted, offer, suffer, minister and to yield. There has never been a greater act of love than the only begotten Son of God yielding His life up on the cross at Calvary. God’s love actively gives. It bestowed forgiveness on a sinful world at the cost of His only Son.
As many times as Jesus told His disciples that He would be crucified, they failed to grasp what He said. Even when He shared the details of how He would be taken and how He would die, they still were blocked from understanding. He finally tells them when they will understand in John 8:27-28, “Then Jesus said to them, when you lift up the Son of Man, then you will know that I am He, and that I do nothing of Myself; but as My Father taught Me…”
When they saw the ultimate sacrifice lifted up, they would know the truth of all He had spoken. The word know means- to come to know, recognize, understand, intimately know and perceive. It takes sacrificial love to truly understand and perceive what God’s love is. It is not about simply hearing the story or singing the song, The Old Rugged Cross. It is about knowing personally and intimately, the One who hung on that cross. His blood was shed for every single human being on the face of this earth.
God was very specific about blood. He tells us in Leviticus 17:11-14 “that the life of all flesh is in the blood.” It was never to be shed without a cause, and we are never to drink it. Remember what God told Cain? “What have you done? The voice of your brothers blood cries to Me from the ground.” There is life and power in the blood, and God loved His creation so much that He sacrificed His perfect and innocent blood for you and me. It will never lose its power!
“Love suffers long and is kind; love does not envy; love does not parade itself; is not puffed up; does not behave rudely; does not seek its own, is not easily provoked, thinks no evil; does not rejoice in iniquity, but rejoices in the truth; bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. Love never fails. 1 Corinthians 13:4-8