The final phrase of John 3:16 says that “whoever believes in Him (Jesus) will not perish but have eternal life.” (NLT) The New Testament uses two words for life. The first one is bios (as in biology). The second is zoe. Bios has to do with physical existence. Zoe, on the other hand, is life…
Category: John 3:16
Receiving the Gift (part 3)
People sometimes brace at the thought of simply believing as the means to receive Jesus. This attitude goes back to the beginning of time. As Jesus spoke to Nicodemus he recalled a simple story from Numbers 21 to illustrate his point. “Then the people of Israel set out from Mount Hor, taking the road to…
Receiving the Gift (part 2)
The way we receive the gift of Jesus is belief. That was the very point of Nicodemus struggle. Lest we forget, John 3:16 is a verse situated in story that goes something like this… “There was a man named Nicodemus, a Jewish religious leader who was a Pharisee. After dark one evening, he came to…
Receiving the Gift
Living in Texas was a great experience for our family. I was serving a wonderful church full time and attending seminary full time. During that time we didn’t have a lot of discretionary income. Eating out was a rare exception unless it involved food paper wrappers and paper bags prepared by teenagers! One day I…
Who are you Priesting?
Last weekend I said that every gift reveals something about the giver and the receiver. But there’s one more thing that the gift of Jesus reveals. It reveals something about our responsibility to our community. Our incarnational presence in the world doesn’t just meet human needs. It awakens faith. We stand in judgment of no…
What Does the "Gift" Reveal About You?
Every gift reveals something about the giver, and every gift reveals something about the recipient. Kind of like when someone offers you a breath mint or a stick of gum. What does the gift of Jesus reveal about you? Everything Jesus is, you are not. Sometimes we are tempted to congratulate ourselves on our approximations…
The Gift
What is the best Christmas gift you’ve ever received? Questions like that make our minds retreat to childhood, when we poked and rattled wrapped packages away from the watchful eyes of mom or dad. I think it’s interesting that I can remember many of those childhood gifts but not remember some of the gifts I’ve…
Love Implies Action
Love not only requires an object, it also demands an action. “For God so loved the world he gave…” — John 3:16 I posed this question last weekend: True or False – Jesus never spoke the phrase, “I love you.” That statement is true, as far as the biblical record is concerned. There is no…
Regifting Christmas
“For God loved the world so much that he gave his one and only Son, so that everyone who believes in him will not perish but have eternal life.” – John 3:16 (NLT) The first phrase of this wonderful verse of Scripture tells us that God loves the world. Love has to have an object…
Regifting Christmas
Are you a “regifter?” According to Wikipedia, regifting is when “goods that have been received as a gift are offered to others, unbeknown to them that it was originally a gift to the person offering it.” The Seinfeld episode made the term popular, but I think we all know that regifting is a practice that…