For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only son, that  whoever believes in him shall  not perish but have eternal life.

John 3:16

This verse may well be the best known of all the New Testament, yet how often do we really think about that kind of love?  Yes, God sent Jesus to die on the cross.  We know it, we recite it and we have feelings about it; some shed tears at the thought. Do we ever actually think about it clearly?

Let’s give it a try now…

What does that really mean?  It means that Jesus was willing to set his life aside for others.  In order for this to happen, it was necessary that he consider everyone else as being more worthy of life than he.  Oh, yes, he was really dead when they put his body in the tomb! We mustn’t rush past this fact so quickly that we forget it: He was really dead! When I was a kid, I used to think that Jesus’ going to the cross wasn’t really that big of a deal, because He was the Son of God and knew how the story would end, but that was the understanding of a child.

 He really died!

So then, how much did God love us?  How much did Jesus love us?  Enough to put the life of Jesus to an END. In so doing, Jesus brought glory to God because He accomplished that deed that changed everything: He set self aside completely in the service of His Father in Heaven.  Jesus glorified God in this; God responded by raising Jesus from the dead and put Him over all things. In the process, Jesus paved the way for us to be forgiven our sins and to inherit eternal life. Now, this is the part of the story that we love to hear, but let’s not forget how it came about: Jesus put us over Himself and set His life aside.

What does God expect from us in response to this?

Oh, was I not supposed to ask that question? Sorry, but God expects us to love one another as Jesus loved us.