December 8, 2014
John 3:16-21
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. For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him. Whoever believes in him is not condemned, but whoever does not believe stands condemned already because they have not believed in the name of God’s one and only Son. This is the verdict: Light has come into the world, but people loved darkness instead of light because their deeds were evil.Everyone who does evil hates the light, and will not come into the light for fear that their deeds will be exposed. But whoever lives by the truth comes into the light, so that it may be seen plainly that what they have done has been done in the sight of God.
RESET
Here’s a question to get our week started. What three things do we find in all stories?
Answer? A beginning. A middle. And an end.
Last week we began with the beginning. We left off right in the middle where we were waiting for Jesus to be born.
This week we will travel all the way to the end. Now the interesting thing about our story is the end is actually a new beginning to the rest of the story which will never end.
The story ends when Jesus comes again, and it begins again with a new heaven and a new earth and it never ends again. This is the final reset.
Knowing how the story will end shows us what we need to do now to be ready. This is where Jesus comes in.
Remember the most famous verse in the Bible? John 3:16. Can you say it from memory?
For God so loved the world he gave his only son that whoever believes in him will not perish but have eternal life.
This is how God intended it to be from the beginning: Eternal Life. God never planned for people to die. Remember Adam and Eve didn’t obey God because they didn’t trust his word. This was the first sin and every person who has ever lived since then has been infected by their bad choice. We have all sinned and it means we will all die. It’s called the law of sin and death. God never intended this. God is light and life. Sin is darkness and death.
So here’s our problem. Because of sin we are born into a life that is destined to end in death.
Jesus came into the world to do what Adam failed to do: to love God completely, to trust God fully and to obey God whole heartedly. He was like a second Adam. This is how much God loves us. He wants us to trust him completely and obey him whole heartedly. To do this we must trust and follow Jesus.
God is giving us a second chance to trust him through obeying and following his son, who has come to save us. This is what it means to be ready when Jesus comes again. More on that to come.
PEOPLE GET READY! JESUS IS COMING!
J.D. Walt writes daily for Seedbed’s Daily Text. He serves as Seedbed’s Sower in Chief. Follow him @jdwalt on Twitter or email him at jd.walt@seedbed.com.
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