John 3:16 and also 17, 18, 19 and 20

Joh 3:16-20  "For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life.  For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him. Whoever believes in him is not condemned, but whoever does not believe is condemned already, because he has not believed in the name of the only Son of God.  And this is the judgment: the light has come into the world, and people loved the darkness rather than the light because their works were evil. For everyone who does wicked things hates the light and does not come to the light, lest his works should be exposed. ESV

John 3:16 is a very popular Bible verse. People often put it on signs to display at sporting events, or have on bumper stickers. People quote it when telling others about Jesus.

The verses immediately following verse 16 are not so widely quoted. But it's important to look at them to get a more complete understanding of what Jesus was saying.

What do those verses say? They declare that whoever does not believe is condemned already because he has not believed in the only Son of God. Why? Because Jesus is is the light. He is the one who make clear what is really true. But a great many people don't want what is really true. They want to believe what they want to true about themselves and others and everything else.

People love the darkness that is ignorance of and rejection of the light of who Jesus is and what He has said and done.

God commands us to love Him with all our heart, soul, mind and strength. We reject that. We decide we have better things to do. We have things that we want to do and we do them rather than do what God tells us to do. And if we consider God at all we simply expect Him to go along with what we've decided to do with our lives.

God knows we're all sinners who have rejected Him. Nevertheless He made one provision for us to be accepted by Him. He sent His only begotten Son to suffer and die in our place, for our sins. Jesus and His death on the Cross is the only sacrifice that the Father accepts for our sins.

God gave us a glimpse of what righteousness would look like by giving us the Law. But all of us pick and choose the parts of His law that we agree with, and then give our own interpretation as to what they mean to us. We decide we know better than God when it comes to doing what is right based on our own evaluation of things. But none of that is acceptable to God.

Gal 2:16  yet we know that a person is not justified by works of the law but through faith in Jesus Christ, so we also have believed in Christ Jesus, in order to be justified by faith in Christ and not by works of the law, because by works of the law no one will be justified.

Jesus, and His death on our behalf, is acceptable to God. Nothing else can make atonement and make things right between us and God. If there was anything else that could make things right between us and God then Jesus, the Son of God, wasted His time going to the Cross to suffer and die for our sins.

Gal 2:21  I do not nullify the grace of God, for if righteousness were through the law, then Christ died for no purpose.

Christ did not die for no purpose. His death paid the price for our sins. We can either believe in Jesus as our Lord and Savior who died in our place on the Cross, and thereby have eternal life, or we can reject Him and what He did, and remain condemned for all eternity.

I hope you will choose to believe in Jesus as your Lord and Savior and will encourage others to do the same. Any who reject Jesus, who He is and what He has done, will regret it forever.