Pause for thought
In you, Lord my God, I put my trust.
Show me your ways, Lord, teach me your paths.
Guide me in your truth and teach me, for you are God my Saviour, and my hope is in you all day long.
(Psalms 25:1,4-5)
Bible Reading: John 3:14-17
Just as Moses lifted up the snake in the wilderness, so the Son of Man must be lifted up, that everyone who believes may have eternal life in him."
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.
For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world,
but to save the world through him.
A Reflection:
I wonder what you do when things don’t go as planned. Do you shout and scream? Do you sulk? Do you look to a family member or to a friend for help? Or do you look to God?
There is a story in the book of Numbers, Chapter 21, where the Israelites complain to God about their situation and end up being beset by a plague of snakes. Deliverance from this comes when Moses makes a bronze snake on a pole and lifts it up. When the people look at the bronze snake they are healed.
These verses from John’s gospel draw a parallel between Moses, lifting up the bronze snake in the wilderness so that the people could look to it and find healing, and Jesus, being lifted up on a cross so that the whole of humanity can look to him and find forgiveness and salvation.
Let us look to Jesus, not just for salvation and forgiveness, but let us look to him whenever we are faced with a difficult situation, whenever things are not going as we hoped, whenever we are faced with a difficult situation. As we look to him we will find peace, we will find hope, we will find wisdom and we will find his great love for us.
As John goes on to say in one of the most famous verses in the bible, ‘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’. God's love for the world, God’s love for you and me, is measured by the extent to which he went in order to save us. God loved the world so much that he gave his Son. And that love demands a response.
Read through that verse again and substitute your own name. ‘God so loved (your name) that he gave his one and only Son, that if I believe in him I shall not perish but have eternal life’.
As you reflect again i=on these words, how will you respond to being ‘so loved’?
Pray:
Father God, I stand amazed at your love for me and for the whole of humanity.
Help me to live each day in response to your great love.
Amen
God so loved the world