How much does our Father love us? I think it's safe to say that by sending and sacrificing his son for all the world tells us that he does love us unconditionally. Unfortunately, we cannot make the same claim. Often we put our love for God on the back burner. He isn't always front and center as he should be. Why? Because we are human.
We often lay blame rather than admit wrongdoing - there is always a reason for why we do what we do. It is a learned behavior. We make excuses for not following through on our daily praises. We make excuses for not attending a worship service. There is always a "yes, but" in our lives.
We all fall into this category, some more so than others. Again, we are human and God knows that better than anyone...he created us with free will. What I've realized is that those of us who were not raised with God as the head of our existence tend to make excuses more often than those who were! We struggle with our priorities and work very hard at undoing and redoing what is most important. For many of us, this verse is something we learned but did not fully comprehend until that moment when we realized that THIS is the reason we can spend eternity with God, not the fact that we attended a church service every Sunday for our entire lives.
God sent Jesus for all of us! He is the way to heaven - there is no other! You cannot get there by following certain church doctrines, nor do you get there because you were baptized into a certain religion. It is through the acceptance of that gift that we are forgiven and saved from the fires of hell. Choose to accept the gift being offered to you each and every day! Make a sincere effort to put God first in all that you do. Work at removing influences that condemn and replace them with those that commend! Pray for other as well as yourself! Focus on the gift given to us that first Christmas morning and know that God's love for us exceeded any material gift we could ever receive!
