John 3:16 is probably the most memorized verse in all of Scripture. God loved us so much that he held nothing back, not even His own son. But the Son of God was not a gift for us to put on a shelf and admire; He was sent to save us from our self-made destruction.

When I was in middle school, I had a party at my house to mark the end of the school year. The directions to my house included 15 minutes of dirt roads. It was not an easy place to find, and the directions were very detailed. One of my friends missed a turn and they became hopelessly lost. I got a call about an hour after he was expected from an exasperated father. I could have tried to explain what he did wrong, or point out that everyone else had made it, or chide him for not calling sooner, but none of those things would have been helpful. Instead, I asked my mom to take me down to the house they were calling from, and I showed them the way.

All of us, like my friend, are hopelessly lost on our own. God gave us very detailed instructions on how to live so that we could be reunited with Him, but we have all missed a turn along the way. Jesus came to the world, not to point out what we did wrong or to condemn us for being lost; rather, he came to make and to show us the way home.

In Christ,

Chappy