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NASB | John 3:16 ¶ "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. |
AMPLIFIED 2015 | John 3:16 ¶ "For God so [greatly] loved and dearly prized the world, that He [even] gave His [One and] only begotten Son, so that whoever believes and trusts in Him [as Savior] shall not perish, but have eternal life. |
Subject: Who is God using? |
Bible Note: I agree that we must act knowing the Lord will return at any time. This inspires us to be bold. Yet, there is another equally important attitude we must hold if we are to be loyal servants. That is, we must act not knowing when He will return. This inspires us to be patient. Each attitude is needed for each task the Lord calls us to do, i.e. to reap and to sow. Yes, we are called to preach the gospel and make disciples, yet we are also called to be in the world but not of it. To me, this means that while we do not endorse worldly values, we cannot do our appointed tasks if we are in a hurry to leave. If there are to be effective harvesters, there must also be those who do the hard work of cultivating and sowing, and this work can only be done with an attitude that the labor may not bear fruit for a season, a year or even a generation. Yet, sowers work in the knowledge the harvesters will indeed come. There is an excellent discussion of the balance between sowing and harvesting in "Finding Common Ground -- How to communicate with those outside the Christian community...while we still can", by Tim Downs. Grace and Peace, Parable |