"Behold, what manner of love the Father hath bestowed upon us, that we should be called the sons of God" (I John 3:1).

Today's post-modern world is saturated by a syrupy mix of assorted worldviews that attempt to diminish God's profound love gift to mankind with a salvation that either applies to everyone, or is so tolerant that the "no absolutes" philosophy of atheism is easily absorbed into religious secularism or spiritual naturalism.

God so loved the world

One could very accurately translate this phrase in John 3:16 as: "In this manner, God loved the world." Just what did this great love gift entail?

The Creator Himself is the gift

God's "beloved Son" (Luke 3:22) was incarnated to become the substitutionary atonement (John 1:1-14; Romans 5:11) for mankind. But this same Jesus who cried "Father, forgive them" (Luke 23:34) on the cross also made the worlds (Colossians 1:16).

Only the Creator could provide the gift

Only an infinite, omniscient, and omnipotent Creator could supply the inestimable gift "for our sins: and not for ours only, but also for the sins of the whole world" (I John 2:2).

Only the Creator could love the ungodly

Created in His "image" (Genesis 1:27), yet now "dead in trespasses and sins" (Ephesians 2:1), we can be "redeemed . . . with the precious blood of Christ" (I Peter 1:18-19) because "God commendeth His love toward us, in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us" (Romans 5:8).

The Creator's gift demands a response

We may receive it and become "the sons of God" (John 1:12), or we will surely "fall into the hands of the living God" (Hebrews 10:31). There is no neutral position.

ICR's commitment to creationism drives us to defend and declare who Jesus is as well as what Jesus did, because the Gospel must include the whole truth, or it becomes a half-truth. Thank you for sharing your love gift with us this month.