June 12
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THE GIFT OF ETERNAL LIFE TO ALL BELIEVERS
16 “For God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him shall not perish, but have eternal life. 17 For God did not send the Son into the world to judge the world, but that the world might be saved through Him. 18 He who believes in Him is not judged; he who does not believe has been judged already, because he has not believed in the name of the [only begotten Son of God. 19 This is the judgment, that the Light has come into the world, and men loved the darkness rather than the Light, for their deeds were evil. 20 For everyone who does evil hates the Light, and does not come to the Light for fear that his deeds will be exposed. 21 But he who practices the truth comes to the Light, so that his deeds may be manifested as having been wrought in God.”
– John 3:16-21
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The book of John is full of the loving nature of God. Verse 3:16 is the essence of Christianity and is the whole theme of the bible. Because of God’s big heart, he decided to rescue mankind from corruption and evil by sacrificing his own Son, Jesus. This chapter explains that Jesus isn’t the one who will judge the world, but it is God the Father who will. In the old testament, we know that God got tired of how evil man has become. So, God decided to bring flood to annihilate them and left Noah and his family who were the only righteous people that time. When the Israelites became unfaithful and served other gods after God delivered them from their enemies, they were also punished. God cannot tolerate evil. Even though he loved all his creation, he will destroy anything wicked.
God loves us so much that he thought of a solution: to make his only begotten Son, Jesus as the sacrifice to atone for our sins so we can be reconciled to our beloved Father. It was a gift of reconciliation. That through Jesus, we can have clean beginning to commune with our heavenly Father. There is nothing required from us but to believe in Jesus because those who won’t believe are already judged and is disqualified to have eternal life. Those who continue to embrace evil in their lives won’t get this gift of salvation. We are told that those who love the darkness will be afraid to come into the light. Light covers darkness, so it won’t even go near it. If it did, it will be extinguished by the great light that only comes from Jesus Christ. We are only asked to believe in Christ so we can have eternal life.
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REFLECTION
• Why do some believers fail to comprehend the concept of “grace through Christ?”