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The message of Easter is simple yet
powerful: God is FOR YOU, not against you. Many people grew up
thinking God was just waiting for them to mess up and then bam! Many
others have faced some of life’s most difficult moments and wondered
where is God…thinking He must be against me because He is not
helping me. But the truth is, the God who created you is FOR YOU and
He proved it through the very first Easter week. Let’s take a moment
to reflect on a well-known but not well-understood verse.
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.
For God did not send His Son into the world to condemn the world,
but that the world through Him might be saved.
“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.
John 3:16-18
The verse starts with the word FOR and then declares just how much
God is FOR US. Notice, For God So Loved the World He gave His only
Son. Two quick life-transforming thoughts and an invitation to
experience more.
1. FOR GOD SO LOVED THE WORLD
We live in a world where love is a word that gets thrown around and
often has little or no meaning to it. Not to mention, we live in a
world where if you disagree with someone it is seen as hate. In
English we have one word for love and it is thrown around loosely to
mean many things. However, in Greek there are several words for
love. The four most common are the following:
• Storge – family love
• Eros – romantic or sexual love
• Philia – brotherly love
• Agape – supreme highest form of love – both unconditional and
sacrificial.
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The love in this verse is agape. It is
a supernatural love that I want you to experience personally, but
also want you to experience flowing through you into the lives of
others. Let me illustrate how powerful this love is by what God did.
2. HE GAVE HIS ONLY SON?
How powerful is this love? How much is God for YOU? How valuable are
you? It came with the highest price tag…the blood of the Son of God.
God gave his Son to die in our place for our sins. Easter is all
about the greatest act of love ever demonstrated in the history of
the world. Jesus did something for us we could not do for ourselves.
As a matter of fact, if He did not do what He did, we would have no
hope beyond the grave. But because He did what He did, we have hope
beyond the grave and hope now.
I want to invite you to learn more about this love and how much God
is FOR YOU. If you do not have a church home, we have a seat for you
at Open Arms 1321 State Route 10 (formerly Lincoln Christian
University Campus) Sundays at 10 am. We are learning how to love
like Jesus loved and loves. He loved through betrayal by one closest
to Him; denial from those He gave Himself to and for, and rejection
from those He died for. You don’t want to miss this series and most
of all this truth that will forever change your life as You Love
Like Jesus.
[Pastor Larry Crawford - Open Arms]
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