3:16

Was Jesus intended as a sacrifice for us?

“For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him may not perish but may have eternal life. “Indeed, God did not send the Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him. Those who believe in him are not condemned; but those who do not believe are condemned already, because they have not believed in the name of the only Son of God. And this is the judgment, that the light has come into the world, and people loved darkness rather than light because their deeds were evil. For all who do evil hate the light and do not come to the light, so that their deeds may not be exposed. But those who do what is true come to the light, so that it may be clearly seen that their deeds have been done in God.” - John 3:16-21

John 3:16.  We see it posted everywhere as a sign of God's love for us, and yet it points to something dark and evil about us.

We are those ungrateful servants who kill the son of the landowner in Jesus' parable.

We are the unworthy and the unappreciative, the greedy and selfish who take what is given and reject the one who gave it.

Is that what we are acknowledging when we post the chapter and verse, 3:16? 

Perhaps John wants us to see ourselves in this, and repent.  Perhaps that is the true message when Jesus says we must come to the light and expose our evilness.

What kind of litmus test can we perform on ourselves to see if we are good or evil in our thoughts and actions?

Is it enough to want to do good?  Or do we need to show it through our acts of kindness toward others?

We can look back at the birth of Jesus and take pride in our knowledge that He is the Messiah, but if we lived in that time, would we have any idea what was happening in the world?

We believe Jesus will come again some day, but who would believe that He is here now and we don't recognize Him?

I wonder if we would be any better in our treatment of Him today than they were back then.

We will celebrate the birth in less than a week.  Perhaps we should open our eyes to those we encounter and treat them as if they are the one who has come from God.

More to come...