Dear Friends,
We hope this week's devotional will encourage you in your spiritual walk. We give thanks to Rev. Dr Linda Stargel, Academic Dean and Senior Lecturer in Biblical Studies and Biblical Language, for writing this devotional.
You are welcome to share this and include it in your church newsletters if you wish; we just ask that you please give credit to NTC and the author. Thank you!
John 3:14-21 (NIV)
14 Just as Moses lifted up the snake in the wilderness, so the Son of Man must be lifted up, 15 that everyone who believes may have eternal life in him.”
16 For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life. 17 For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him. 18 Whoever believes in him is not condemned, but whoever does not believe stands condemned already because they have not believed in the name of God’s one and only Son. 19 This is the verdict: Light has come into the world, but people loved darkness instead of light because their deeds were evil. 20 Everyone who does evil hates the light and will not come into the light for fear that their deeds will be exposed. 21 But whoever lives by the truth comes into the light, so that it may be seen plainly that what they have done has been done in the sight of God.
Devotional
Growing up in Detroit, it was common to see “condemned” notices nailed to the front doors of dilapidated houses. Most of these had been neglected for a very long time. The council’s notice of condemnation simply recognized the obvious reality.
Jesus’s message in John 3 clarifies a similar spiritual truth. People live in a state of condemnation brought on by the choices they make. It is a present-day reality not just an end times declaration. They are dying spiritually before Jesus enters into their lives. But this state of condemnation is a prelude to the Gospel message, not a part of it. Jesus’s primary purpose and mission is not to post condemnation notices. Jesus decisively says, “God did not send the Son into the world to condemn the world but to save the world through him.” Centuries before this, Moses similarly had raised up a bronze snake on a pole offering God’s salvation to a people who already stood condemned. John 3:16 announces that God loves the “world”—this entity characterized so negatively in John’s Gospel. God inaugurates a gracious solution of salvation through Jesus. Into a situation of decay, God bursts in, motivated by love. Gospel emphasizes solution, not problem. In Christ, God offers life, and light, and ‘non-condemnation’!
We have been brought back from condemnation to life!
May we now also proclaim this Gospel: love and life to those who are dying!
May we spend more time emphasizing God’s solution than trying to expose the pre-existing and obvious problem.
Prayer
God, thank you for Jesus’s reminder to Nicodemus and us about the truth of the Gospel. Thank you for your offer of life that came to us when we were condemned and dying of our own accord. We acknowledge the immensity of your gift and the comparable insignificance of our faith that takes hold of your gift. May we share freely with others this Good News offer of life.
Linda M. Stargel (Academic Dean and Senior Lecturer in Biblical Studies and Biblical Language)