Condemned Again?
John 3:16-21
What does it mean to be condemned?
Photo by Mahdi Bafande on Unsplash
“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
According to John, if you believe in Jesus, you have eternal life.
For many of us, that's a good enough reason to believe. We all believe we want to live forever in some form or another, so why not believe?
But John goes on to say that Jesus did not come to condemn the world, but to save it. So, he wants us to have this eternal life. If we don't believe, he says, we are already condemned.
This is the key, in my mind.
He is telling us the life we are living now, is much richer and fuller when we believe in Jesus than when we don't.
We condemn ourselves to a less meaningful life when we don't follow him. That sounds like our free will can give us trouble. We can make our lives miserable by choosing not to believe.
Yes, Jesus warns us about the end times and God's judgment, which is what we tend to focus on. But what good is it to worry about something we have already caused to happen by the way we live our lives?
We are already condemned to a life of pain and sorrow by ignoring God in our lives. God will always be with us if we invite Him in.
Sounds simple, and it is.
We can save what is left of our lives by turning to God, receiving the gift of the Holy Spirit to walk with us and guide us, and we can look forward to being in God's presence for eternity.
That sounds good to me.
And the price we have to pay for this is not a price at all. It is free.
But if we focus on eternal damnation and punishment, we scare ourselves silly. Who needs that?
More to come...