“For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life” (John 3:16-18 NKJV).
God so loved the world. John used a word to describe humanity without God, the fallen world. It refers to a system that developed to cover our imperfections. It’s the root of the word ‘cosmetic’ – a system of adornment to cover our blemishes. So intense was God’s love for us sinners that He sent Jesus to get us out of our mess.
Mess? Our mistreatments, our misunderstandings, our betrayals, our abandonments, our foolishness, our wrongdoings, our pretence, our cover-ups, our bad bits – need I go on? Collectively (and individually) we are not pretty creatures yet God gave us His only Son to free us of the penalty we deserve. And why? God sees beyond our imperfections and loves the unblemished world that He created, not the world that man created.
Our sins don’t cause God to recoil in horror. No! Our sins cause God to surge forward and pursue us to win our love. It’s inexplicable, I know, but that is the heart of God: pure love. kindness and mercy. God sees the person He created you to be and He loves you. He wants the best for you. “For I know the thoughts that I think toward you, says the LORD, thoughts of peace and not of evil, to give you a future and a hope” (Jer. 29:11 NKJV).
When God takes me in His arms, He doesn’t hug a college principal, CEO, company director, PhD, author, grandma – no, He is hugging the person He created and He loves me in spite of all these things [1]. What I’ve created means nothing to Him - He is only interested in what He creates in me.
When we understand that, then all the mistakes, sorrows, regrets that we have won’t control us. Our sorrows, fears and regrets are all the result of the person we created, not who God created.
So let’s paraphrase what John 3:16 is telling us:
For God so loved the beautiful people of this world, that is the people he created, not the ones that we create. He loves us even in our sinful, corrupt, wicked ways, because that is not what He created, we created that. He only loves what He created. God sent his only Son to die for us so He could remove all the flaws that we created and others created in us. By doing so all God sees in us when we believe in Him is just that beautiful person He created, the rest was nailed to a cross and we can leave that behind and walk into everlasting life that perfect and beautiful person He created[1].
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[1] Concept and quote from https://www.chaimbentorah.com/2014/07/word-study-god-beautiful/ accessed 29.1.22
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