My Favorite Bible Verse

For a long time I came up empty handed.  People would ask me what my favorite Bible verse was and I wouldn’t be able to come up with an answer.  But that changed during my first year of grad school.  I was in seminary at Trinity Evangelical Divinity School--a school located about 30 miles outside of Chicago.  It was a dry time in my life spiritually.  Ever had one of those?  Despite the fact that I was studying theology and the Bible hours each day, I just wasn’t sensing God’s presence.  Intimacy with God seemed to be lacking.  I was setting aside time each day to connect with Him, but I wasn’t feeling his love or presence in my life.  No matter how much I talked with God, I wasn’t hearing anything back.  And this had been going on for quite some time.  I was growing weary.  

Things took a turn one night while I was lying in bed.  My wife Josie had already fallen asleep but I was still awake and totally restless--probably stressing about a paper that had yet to be completed.  This had become a pattern.  After I had entertained anxious thoughts for a while, I began to ponder how far away God felt.  Nothing made sense.  Why was I spending so much time and energy and money on all this education when God seemed so very far away?  Trying to figure out the answer just made me upset.  The truth was that I was furious with God and I felt like giving up.  So I began to shout at him--not out loud, of course, but in my mind.  My thoughts were screaming at God, “Where are you?  I am so sick of these one-way conversations.  I am so tired of talking to a wall.  Why am I doing all of this hard work?  It doesn’t seem worth it.  You’ve abandoned me!”  I tried to listen for a response, but didn’t hear anything back--which just further solidified my anger.   After a few more minutes of attempted listening, I gave up and went back to worrying about school stuff until I finally started to get drowsy.  But just before I fell asleep something happened.  A random verse popped into my mind.  The verse was 1 John 3:16.  Honestly, I had no idea what 1 John 3:16 said.  In fact, I didn’t even know if 1 John had 3 chapters.  I remember feeling like I was supposed to go and look up the verse, but I didn’t.  I was so near sleep I brushed it off and decided to get some shuteye.

I woke up the next morning and was going about my business when 1 John 3:16 popped into my mind again.  This time I decided I would look it up.  I grabbed my Bible and turned to 1 John 3.  What I read reduced me to tears:

This is how we know what love is: Jesus Christ laid down his life for us.  And we ought to lay down our lives for one another.

In a flash I sensed God’s presence in an overwhelming way.  And I sensed him using this verse to communicate his love to me.  “Mac, this is how you know that I love you: Jesus Christ laid down his life for you.  Do you want to know how much I love you, Mac?  Look at Jesus.  He gave his life for you.  He paid the ultimate price.  That’s how much I love you.  And my love for you, Mac, is constant.  It does not grow tired or stale.  It’s new everyday.  My love is real and tangible.  Taste it.  Taste it and see.  Drink it in deeply.” 

It is one thing to understand the truth of a verse.  It’s quite another thing to experience the truth of a verse.  One of my deepest concerns for churchgoers is the temptation to settle for the former and never reach for the latter.  If you ask people what they believe about God, they often have a lot to say.  But if you ask them how they have experienced God, things often get strangely quiet.  Many think that “going deeper” is about increasing Bible knowledge.  And Bible knowledge is not a bad thing.  But “going deeper” is more about experiencing the truth of the Bible--and then living it out in a way that impacts others.  You see, you can believe on an intellectual level that God loves you.  And that’s a good thing.  But it is quite another thing to experience God’s love for you in a real way.  Actually experiencing God’s love for you is what will transform you.  1 John 3:16 is my favorite verse because it represents a time when I encountered God’s love experientially, tangibly, and in a way that was transformative.