For God So Loved the World

We all have read or heard or know the scripture John 3:16 "For God so loved the world, that he gave His only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in Him shall not perish, but have everlasting life." The purpose of this blog today is to cover a couple of things. First God's motives for making choices and yours.

Reasons for making decisions can basically be categorized into 3 sections the 1st being fear. I'll give examples to illustrate these differences.

Fear. Let's reflect on our Savior Jesus Christ. When Jesus suffered for our sin's, His reason for doing it wasn't because He was scared what would happen to Him if He didn't do it. If He did not do it He would not be afraid of us rising against Him and punishing Him or torturing Him, although all of those happened because He did do it. Jesus is God, He isn't scared of anything He has no reason to be. So His suffering for us was not because He was scared of what would happen to Him.

The second reason is because of self gain. Jesus personally did not gain anything from suffering for us and dieing for us. He didn't get a million dollars, nor did He get a new house on the beach. He did not get that job promotion He might have been looking for or some great reward for His outstanding zeal and courage. Like fear, He is God has all power and is in control of all things, He had no reason to do that for Him to personally gain at all.

The third reason is because of love. Jesus knew what our state would be if He did not die for us. He knew we would be worse than dead, far worse. He knew the suffering that we would deal with for all eternity. This kind of motive is charity. Pure love. Doing something for no other reason than because you love and care about someone. Jesus' motives for suffering for us was because He loves us.

This relates to us because of God's commandments. What are our motives for keeping God's commandments? Are we afraid that we might suffer consequences from not living how we should? Are we doing it because we want to earn a great reward and go to heaven were you live the good life? Or are we doing because we love Him?

"If ye love me, keep my commandments." (John 14:15)