“What the world needs now is love.” The headline in two-inch-high letters proclaimed it and then went on to list twenty ways to “love the world”: recycle newspapers, car pool, plant a tree...you know the list. It is well to practice thrift and save resources, but is that the only kind of love the world needs?
There is no doubt the world needs love; sorrow, grief, tragedy and heartbreak are all around us. Daily we see such sadness and desperation that it can hardly be borne. Even our young people, who, we think, should be enjoying happy, carefree childhood and youth, are becoming so confused and depressed that they are in some cases taking that last desperate and irrevocable step: suicide. Lonely, discouraged and despairing, they turn away from life, from light, from love.
There is love, real, true, everlasting love, and Jesus Christ came to bring it 2000 years ago. There has been love for the world of humanity in all the wonderful works of God for us. His power shows in all of His beautiful creation, but that cannot compare with His wonderful love in sending the Lord Jesus Christ into the world to save all who will accept that love.
A man was walking along the street when he saw ahead of him a friend, an old Christian missionary. He was about to catch up with him when he noticed the old man was talking to himself, so he stayed to listen. He heard the old missionary saying, “God so loved the world...” Then he would pause, shake his head and start over again. “God so loved the world...” Again the pause, the wondering head shake. He had been preaching God’s love for most of his life, and yet he could not get beyond the miracle of love that embraced this poor world.
The whole verse says, “God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in Him should not perish, but have everlasting life” (John 3:1616For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life. (John 3:16)). Believe it! Receive it! And learn what love really is!