Jesus Loves Me!

God's New Seed

There are days when I feel like no one really cares about me—I call it having a pity party. Have you ever noticed, though, that when you have a pity party no one shows up but you?

Being in the ministry exposes us to some very rude and bitter people and, if we are not careful, they begin to have their effect on us. E-mails can become “drive-by shootings” and it sometimes seems like everywhere we look, there is trouble on the horizon headed our way. We need to hear those most beautiful words in the Christian vocabulary over and over again, “Jesus loves me, this I know, for the Bible tells me so!” If He loves you and me, then what else matters?

Look at what He has done for us! The very word “covenant” is God’s way of telling us that He loves us. Love, in every culture, is always the basis of entering into a covenant relationship with anyone. Love is who God is, and it shows us why He does what He does.

“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” (John 3:16). I will never forget the day when I understood that it was no longer just “God so loved the world,” but also “God so loved Wayne.” Think of it—the God who spoke the world into existence loves us! The very character of God is love, as John tells us also in his epistle, “The one who does not love does not know God, for God is love” (1 John 4:8).

I am told that a great theologian once spoke at a university, and, at the conclusion of his message, he was asked, “what is the greatest truth that you’ve ever learned?” He said simply, “Jesus loves me, this I know, for the Bible tells me so.” Since God is love, then it makes total sense that God would choose the language of covenant from man’s vocabulary to explain the relationship that He wants with us—the language of covenant is a love language. 

After Adam sinned in Genesis 3 and, in his sin, condemned all mankind with no hope in sight (because we are all born of his seed), God promised that there would one day be a new seed born of woman that would crush Satan and provide for us a new birth and redemption.

First though, sin had to be dealt with, so God began to reveal His plan for our redemption. In Genesis 12, He singled out a Chaldean man from Babylon named Abram. He cut a unilateral covenant with him by putting him to sleep, because He knew that Abram was of the seed of Adam and could never fulfill his end of the deal. In this covenant, God promised him a land, a nation and reaffirmed His promise of a seed! 

Seed determines kind, so there would have to be a new seed promised. Years ago, I learned this principle the hard way. I was planting some beans, but I did not realize they were pole beans—they would climb the length of the pole that you planted them around, and I had picked out some 10 to 12 foot poles that it would take a ladder to harvest from! Seed always determines kind—if you plant peas, you will get peas, etc. 

Man is born of the seed of Adam, which is bad seed! Bad seed only produces bad fruit and more bad seed. Redemption requires another seed altogether. God ratified His covenant to Isaac and then to Jacob, who became Israel and had twelve sons who became the 12 tribes of Israel. The seed promised to Abram was not Isaac, as it would appear, although he was an important part of the promise. It would be from the tribe of Judah and the line of David that the new seed would get His humanity. Galatians 3:16 tells us that Jesus is that seed, the new seed: “Now the promises were spoken to Abraham and to his seed. He does not say, ‘And to seeds,’ as referring to many, but rather to one, ‘And to your seed,’ that is, Christ.”

God chose to send His Son into this world, the God Man, the new seed, so that you and I could be redeemed from the curse of the old seed and be born again into the newness of His life.  He loves us! Hold your head up; remember what God has done and who you are in Christ. No one can take that away from you. Jesus loves me, this I know, for the Bible tells me so!

Wayne Barber is senior pastor of Hoffmantown Church in Albuquerque, New Mexico