“For this is how God loved the world: He gave His one and only Son, so that everyone who believes in Him will not perish but have eternal life.” (John 2:16 NLT)
Amazing.
I can’t tell you how many times I have read this verse. Today, it clicked for me in a new way, perhaps because I recently read Galatians 2:20-21 which says (in my understanding) that Jesus came and died so that grace could come into the world and create a space for a relationship with Him and that we should not treat His grace – and that opportunity – lightly because it cost Him such a high price to make it available.
“My old self has been crucified with Christ. It is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me. So I live in this earthly body by trusting in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me. I do not treat the grace of God as meaningless …” (Galatians 2:20-21A NLT)
And now this verse.
For this is how God loved the world: He gave His one and only Son … so that everyone who believes in Him will … have eternal life.”
For relationship.
With me.
He died.
I have always thought about grace as the opposite of legalism.
Or grace as ‘the undeserved favour of God to me.” (ie: I escape from a result that should have befallen me)
But this sheds a whole new light on grace as an extreme expression of love.
It makes me want to cry.
I feel so humbled and in awe that He would do that. For me.
For you.
And no, I never want to treat that grace provided to me freely, but at such an unspeakably high price, lightly or take it for granted.
