I spent a week this past summer at Camp Arnold in Washington state leading a teen camp workshop, and it was one of the best weeks of my summer! My workshop was a coffee hangout where I taught teenagers to make coffee, and then we got to hang out together. It was the perfect balance of learning and fellowship. 

Throughout the week, we dissected one of the most popular Bible verses of all time: John 3:16. It’s often celebrated as the most succinct description of the gospel, all in one sentence! This is a passage I memorized as a second grader, but I was almost too familiar with it to be open to learning something new. 

As He does, the Holy Spirit revealed completely new insights into this well-loved passage of Scripture, and my understanding was expanded tenfold. 

“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” (John 3:16, NIV). 

For my camp devotion, I was assigned the “God so loved” portion of the verse, and in my study, I read this line that explained that God loved the world while it was still the world. Before we had a chance to choose God, He chose us. 

God sent His son to die for us because He desires a relationship with us. Before Jesus, followers of God were not able to freely communicate with God. The relationship was broken because of sin. But Jesus’s work on the cross and resurrected life gave us accessibility to a relationship with God like never before. We can freely approach our Creator at any time!

So often I feel like I am not holding up my end of the relationship. I can feel like I don’t love God enough, or I don’t do enough, or I am messing up too much— and somehow that is letting God down. 

But the reality is that God loved me long before I decided to follow Him. Long before I loved Him, and even before I was born. His plan of salvation was for me at the moment that He sent Jesus into the world. His plan of salvation was for you at that same moment. 

It’s important that we follow Jesus, and that we are discipled and growing in holiness throughout our lives. But we should always remember that God was for us before we could do any of that. God so loved the world, that He made a plan to rescue us before we knew we needed rescuing. That is the gospel, and that is worth remembering. 

Dig Deeper:

What passages of Scripture are already super familiar to you? Go back and reread them with the intention of learning something new!

Write down a list of times where you’ve felt like you didn’t measure up, and then reread John 3:16 while crossing each item off the list. Remember that God so loved you before you could love Him!

• October 1: John 3:1-2
• October 2: John 3:3
• October 3: John 3:4
• October 4: John 3:5
• October 5: John 3:6
• October 6: John 3:7
• October 7: John 3:8
• October 8: John 3:9-10
• October 9: John 3:11
• October 10: John 3:12
• October 11: John 3:13
• October 12: John 3:14
• October 13: John 3:15
• October 14: John 3:16
• October 15: John 3:17
• October 16: John 3:18
• October 17: John 3:19
• October 18: John 3:20
• October 19: John 3:21
• October 20: John 3:22
• October 21: John 3:23-24
• October 22: John 3:25
• October 23: John 3:26
• October 24: John 3:27
• October 25: John 3:28
• October 26: John 3:29
• October 27: John 3:30
• October 28: John 3:31
• October 29: John 3:32
• October 30: John 3:33
• October 31: John 3:34-36

Prayer:

God, Your love is too much, too great. My mind can’t comprehend it! Help me to live in a way that honors You and shows others this same great love. Amen.  

Breath Prayer:

Inhale: God so loved the world. 

Exhale: God so loves me.  

This article was originally titled “God So Loved” in the October 2023 issue of Peer. | Flower Illustration by Lan Truong & Verse Illustration by Saskia Bueno.