For God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him shall not perish, but have eternal life.

—John 3:16

I don’t think I’ve ever had such a hard time deciding what verse to start a devotion off with as I had with this devotion. It seemed almost impossible to choose a verse about Jesus’s love for people when every single one of the over 31,000 verses of the Bible is part of the world’s most epic love letter, but this topic is what’s been on my heart the latter half of this last week.

Jesus’s love for us is such a basic part of our faith. “Jesus Loves Me” is one of the first Bible songs we learn as children; John 3:16 is one of the first verses we memorize and for good reason. Our God is love, and that truth is the most magnificent blessing. It should be one of the first pieces of doctrine we teach our children. 

But there’s one problem—it is such a foundational truth, one that we’ve heard repeated more than any of us could probably count, that it can become more muscle memory than remembrance. When Jesus led his disciples in the last supper and told them to “Do this in remembrance of me”, I don’t think that was the kind of remembrance He was referring to because there is so much more to the way He loves us than the basic knowledge that He does.

The truth that God loves us is like a black-and-white photograph when compared to the 3D technicolor reality of the depth and breadth of that love. It’s important to remember that photograph, but it’s also important to remember the reality behind that photograph because it’s the reality that motivated Jesus to face the cross.

In the spirit of remembering the reality of the depth of Jesus’s love for people and the value He places on each of us, here are a few thoughts.

There has never been a barrier He has not been willing to cross to reach us—Jesus crossed racial barriers when He decided to make a Samaritan woman the first evangelist. He crossed socio-economic barriers, befriending both the wealthy and the destitute and treating them equally. He hurtled over the stigma of associating with tax collectors, people with questionable pasts, and other people whom the religious leaders had decided were sinners. And most importantly he didn’t let the barrier of our sin keep Him from coming to our aid.

When the sin of humanity separated us from Him, God could have given up on us and left us to destroy ourselves. Instead, He wove Himself and His love for us into the fabric of history—Jesus and the love He has for people can be found throughout the Old Testament. From the salvation of Noah’s ark that was open to anyone who would accept it to Abraham interceding on behalf of Lot who was living in Sodom to the salvation provided through the success and authority of Joseph to the fourth man who turned up in Nebuchadnezzar’s furnace, Jesus and His offer of salvation are there.

He is the only One Who will ever be able to sacrifice everything for us because He is the only One Who had everything to sacrifice—Jesus sacrificed heaven. He sacrificed a life without pain or illness. He sacrificed proximity to the Father. He sacrificed the fact that He did not need anything. He sacrificed security. 

And then He went to a world where He would be homeless for three years while He tried to minister to people who hated Him to the point of plotting to have Him killed. He did this knowing that eventually the people who wanted to kill Him would succeed, and would have Him put to death using a method so painful that they had to invent a new world to express that level of agony (that’s why excruciating has the same root word as crucify). 

No one has ever had so much to lose, so many reasons to not get involved with knuckleheads like us, but He decided we were worth that sacrifice.

These things amaze me, partly because of how astonishing they are all by themselves, and partly because I know these ideas barely bring color to one corner of that old black-and-white photograph. There is so much more to discover about how deeply God loves and values His people, and it’s so important that we do because not only does it change the way we see that photograph, but knowing how deeply God loves people will also color the way we look at that student that refused to follow directions for the umpteenth time or that coworker who never follows protocol like everyone else or that knuckleheaded spouse of yours who did that thing you can’t stand again.

My prayer for this week is that we will start to seek out deep knowledge of God’s love for the people He created, so we can begin to see others the way He sees them—as treasures who were worth the sacrifice.