![]() ![]() Many of you know that we are reading C.S. Over and over, the Bible says God responded to us with LOVE. Titus 3:4 “But when the kindness of God our Savior and His LOVE for mankind appeared, He saved us …” Ephesians 5:2 “as Christ also LOVED you, and gave Himself up for us” Ephesians 2 says that when God saw us “dead” in our trespasses and sins, :4 says: “But God, being rich in mercy, BECAUSE OF HIS GREAT LOVE with which He loved …” sent Christ for us. “For God SO LOVED.” It’s an amazing thought - but we see this taught all through scripture: And we would have deserved whatever He did to us! But instead the Bible says He responded with love. Theoretically, He could have responded in a number of different ways. He could have immediately wiped us out with a lightning bolt from the sky! He could have responded to us with contempt or spite or anger. Ephesians 2 says “we all lived in the lusts of the flesh, indulging the desires of the flesh and of the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, even as the rest.” None of us are an exception to that: Romans 3:23 says, “ALL have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.” That’s what God saw in us. From the very beginning God made us to know Him and love Him, but from the Garden of Eden on, all mankind has sinned against God and turned away from Him in disobedience. ![]() ![]() The words “God so loved” here are important because they tell us how God responded to mankind. John 3:16 may possibly the greatest verse in all the Bible because it shows us: Is it really the greatest verse? Well, greatness, like beauty, may be in the eye of the beholder, but I think you can certainly make a case that it could be the greatest verse. What might be the greatest verse in the Bible? What would you say that it is? Poll after poll, survey after survey, consistently say that ONE verse is considered to be the “the greatest verse of scripture” in the Bible: John 3:16. A new acronym has arisen in light of that: “GOAT,” which stands for “Greatest of All Time.” The first time I saw that, it was attributed to Tom Brady, who has continued to play into his mid-40s, and has won more Super Bowls than any other quarterback in history, so he has been labeled “The GOAT”: “The greatest of all time.” And others have been called “the greatest” of this or that, in many different fields.īut what about the Bible? We are reading through the Bible together this year. Challenge them to say the verse loudly when your hand is up and to whisper it when your hand is low…and then change it up in the middle of the verse! Or turn a printout of the verse into a puzzle and see if one of your students can put it together in order by the time the rest of the group has finished saying it out loud.People often enjoy discussing who or what “the greatest” is in different areas of life.
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