When I was a child watching sporting events, there always seemed to be someone holding up a John 3:16 Sign. I was too young realize that this was one of the most iconic verses in the Bible. The gospel author who wrote down Jesus’ words to a Pharisee named Nicodemus appears to refer to this in the passage below. The hope that Christians are resting on is the promise of eternal life.
And everyone who has this hope [resting] on Him cleanses (purifies) himself just as He is pure (chaste, undefiled, guiltless), 1 John 3:3.
In this age of war, the Coronavirus, and death, the thought of another world is promising. Yet, the skeptic will exclaim that “this sounds too good to be true.” Like the moving scene in Shawshank Redemption, you have two choices in life: get busying living or get busying dying? Or as Moses explains in his farewell address in Deuteronomy 30:15-16, every decision that you make in life will either draw you toward life or death.
For God so greatly loved and dearly prized the world that He [even] gave up His only begotten ([d]unique) Son, so that whoever believes in (trusts in, clings to, relies on) Him shall not perish (come to destruction, be lost) but have eternal (everlasting) life. 17 For God did not send the Son into the world in order to judge (to reject, to condemn, to pass sentence on) the world, but that the world might find salvation and be made safe and sound through Him, John 3:16-17.
Perhaps the point that John is trying to make is that without the concept of heaven, we have no hope. Returning to Shawshank Redemption, hope is what kept Andy alive while being in prison. Yet, for Red hope is dangerous, any empty promise for someone sentenced to life in prison. Faith is resting in the promise of the passage above. Christians place their trust in Jesus and rest in the hope of heaven.
by Jay Mankus
ExpressYourself4Him 