God doesn’t look at you and I and see imperfect obedience; He sees the perfect obedience of His Son and counts it as our obedience. Don’t fear, dear children of God, being cut off and cast out by our loving God and Father. Let your joy be full in knowing that you’re loved. And prove you love Him by dwelling in His love for you and working to improve your obedience to Christ every day.

That God wants to save sinners is clear in other verses in this conversation; but why He wants to save those sinners isn’t. That God sent His Son is clear in other statements by Jesus; but the nature of that sending isn’t. Why does God want to save sinners? Because He loves them! How did God send His Son? As a loan? As wages? No. As a gift! “For God so loved the world that GAVE his only Son.”

God’s love doesn’t begin at “For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son…” It begins much earlier—eternally earlier in fact. It begins with “For God so loved His only begotten Son”!