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Jesus, help me understand it's not okay to use threats to make people change! Amen.


"God loved the world so much that He sent me, His only Son, so that everyone who believes in me can live forever in heaven with God," Jesus said. "I'm not here to condemn the world; I'm here to save it!"

One of the classic threats from adults is, "Wait till your parents get home!" Whether it's your mother yelling about your father, the other way around, or a babysitter yelling about both your parents, it's meant to scare you into stopping bad behavior immediately.

The way your babysitter uses parents as a warning is the same way some people warn about God. "Wait till you go to heaven someday; you won't be staying there long!" they say; or, "Wait till Jesus comes back someday -- people like you will be in big trouble!"

In this week's Gospel (John 3:13-17), Jesus Himself says that's not true at all.

In fact, Jesus says just the opposite: that He didn't come to threaten people who were struggling to be good. He came to help them get closer to God, so they could learn how to be better.

Your babysitter (or your mother or father) threatens that another adult who's coming home soon will punish you because the babysitter is frustrated. You're misbehaving, and the person in charge at the moment doesn't know how to make you stop.

Jesus wouldn't like that way of handling things. When He came into the world as a person, He used love to change people, not threats. He even said the whole reason He came was out of love -- God the Father's love for the world.

Jesus didn't as much yell that people were being bad as promise the great rewards that would come for being good.

"You'll go to heaven" sounds a lot better than, "Wait till your Father gets home!" [[In-content Ad]]

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