“For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whosoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life.”John 3:16
The verse is so incredibly well known, children learn it in Sunday School and adults who have it engrained in their heart either believe it to the full stop at the end or think it shares a truth too wonderful and fantastical to ever really be true and apply to them.
But it does.
For me the key word that stands out is whosoever. It’s not a certain person or demographic for whom God sent Jesus, it’s not a subset of humanity that is loved unconditionally…
It’s you.
Salvation wasn’t only a one-way golden ticket for my dad and (hopefully) it isn’t for you. It’s the beginning of a relationship, the beginning of a journey that continues on and on throughout our mortal life and into our immortal one.
It’s for the great and the good, it’s for the bold and the bad, God doesn’t see identities in the way that we do, he simply sees the whosoevers and lovingly invites them to “Come.”
Like in the story of the prodigal, our father sees us from afar and races to meet us, he throws his arms around us and embraces us. This is the relationship, this is the depth of the connection we have to the eternal father. All because Jesus came for the whosoevers like you and me.