John 3:16 hung on the wall of our bedroom when I was a child. It was the first verse I learned to repeat. I got a prize at Sunday school for saying John 3:16, when I was six years old. But although I was able to say it from memory correctly, I did not personally believe it, nor know its saving power.
When I first left home, my mother gave me a Bible, and marked John 3:16 in it with her own hand. For her sake I often read it, but beyond that it had no power over me. Then a companion, who was a true Christian, asked me one night what verse was the means of leading me to the Lord Jesus, for evidently she thought I was converted. I was unable to answer, so she said, “How long have you had eternal life?”
I hung my head, for I was ashamed to tell her I did not have it at all. She drew me to her side, opened my Bible at John 3:16, marked by my mother’s hand, and told me how she had been saved by believing on the Lord Jesus as He is presented there. “God loved me, God gave His Son to me. I believed, I received everlasting life.” It all seemed so simple. I saw it was for me, as well as her, for “whosoever” included me.
O, how different John 3:16 was to me then, for it showed me God as loving me, His Son as given to me, and everlasting life as mine. I have it framed in my room. I call it my favorite text, but, better than all, it lives in my memory and heart.
ML 01/17/1965