The Greatest Riddle

I don't know if you had the experience of trying to untangle a bunch of cords that had been so jumbled that you eventually had to give up on it. One cord is tied to another in one way, and the other cord in a knot with several another, that there is no possible way of untangling them all, without cutting them, to get to the one you want. It is so messed up, that you don't even know how it got to this in the first place.

This is the likeness of the state of the world. The Bible calls the world a "crooked and twisted generation" (Philipians 2:15), that has gotten itself tangled and mixed-up beyond all human repair. And it is this way, because the hearts of people are this way. The bible says that the "heart is deceiful above all things, and desperately sick; who can undestand it?" The human heart is an unknowable, dark, winding world of evil, sick beyond all comprehension. We know this, from the things that we think in our own hearts. And Christ said that it is from this sick and twisted heart of man that proceeds all the evil of the world: "For out of the heart come evil thoughts, murder, adultery, sexual immorality, theft, false witness, slander" (Matthew 15:19)

But how did our hearts become this knot of cords impossible to untangle? Where did all this start? The Bible says that it began the garden of Eden. God made man in the image of God, and placed him on earth, that he may rule this earth as God's steward. Man was made to be the visible glory of the insivible God, to show all the wonderful character of God by all that he does, thinks and says. Man was made to love God, with all his heart, with all his soul and all his strength, and to love fellow man as himself, thus reflecting image of the God of Love that He is.

But Adam, our first parent, failed to do what he was placed on earth to do. He ate of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, which God commanded him not to eat, choosing autonomy and independence from God. He hated God in his heart, and desiring himself to be God, wanting to make himself the lord and the king of his own life. He thus repaid God who loved him, the one who had blessed him with life, food, a spouse, authority and so much more. Adam rebelled against God, and used the things that God has given him to make himself the centre of the universe. And because Adam's relationship with His Creator was broken and became hostile, his relationship with other people became hostile. He blamed Eve for the sin he committed. And we remember that Cain, the second man born after Adam, was a murderer, who killed his brother Abel with his own hands over petty jealousy.

And from then, man has become more and more twisted and crooked generation after generation. This is what the Bible says about the state of man in the time of Noah: "The LORD saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every intention of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually" (Genesis 6:5). And though God caused the Great Flood to sweep away all living things except Noah's family, man's wickedness did not stop, but it grew worse, their hearts becoming more and more tangled and tied in knots. On the night before God destroyed Sodom with fire and brimstone, two angels visited the city, to see whether or not it was as evil as He was told. But we see how the entire city was sold to sexual immorality, that all its citizens, both young and old, down to the very last man, came to the gate of Lot's house, in order to rape the angels: "But before they lay down, the men of the city, the men of Sodom, both young and old, all the people to the last man, surrounded the house. And they called to Lot, “Where are the men who came to you tonight? Bring them out to us, that we may know them.” (Genesis 19:4-5).

And man has not gotten better since then. Man has continually hated God, and has not wanted anything to do with Him, and have ignored and neglected Him continually. The bible says that "none is righteous, no, not one; no one understands, no one seeks for God" (Romans 3:10-11). No man has any interest for God. Man has also hated his fellow man continually, hating, murdering, abusing and cursing each other, not forgiving one another, gossipping and disputing with one another, not able to to love each other as brothers of the same blood. We have all lost the image of God, but we have all borne the image of fallen, sinful Adam. All of have become like Cain, having no fear of God, nor any love for our neighbours. Like Cain, we have become cursed, having been driven away from the presence of God, having been cast into darkness, blindness and deadness towards Him, that we cannot turn toward Him even if we wanted to. We are lost, as a man that is lost in a labyrinth from which no one can find the way out, into an abyss so deep and dark that no man rescue us out from. This is our current state. We are dead to God, and so dead to anything that is real or that is meaningful or divine, being trapped and snared by only the things of this world, only things of this life, only the things of man, only the things that is not of any benefit to our souls.

Not only that, we are doomed for destruction. Just as God has destroyed the world by water one time in the days of Noah, the Bible says the world is now reserved for destruction by fire, on the Day when God will judge the world: "But by the same word the heavens and earth that now exist are stored up for fire, being kept until the day of judgment and destruction of the ungodly" (2 Peter 3:7).

On that Last Day God will judge the world in righteousness. He will reveal all the thoughts and the secrets of the hearts of men, and whatever we have done in our body and whatever we have said with our mouth shall be judged according to His perfect standard righteousness. Just as God destroyed Sodom, God will destroy all sinners, not with fire that can be quenched, but with eternal, unquenchable fire of Hell: "just as Sodom and Gomorrah and the surrounding cities, which likewise indulged in sexual immorality and pursued unnatural desire, serve as an example by undergoing a punishment of eternal fire" (Jude 1:7); "But as for the cowardly, the faithless, the detestable, as for murderers, the sexually immoral, sorcerers, idolaters, and all liars, their portion will be in the lake that burns with fire and sulfur, which is the second death" (Revelation 21:8).

But our destruction is not God's desire. The Bible says God "desires all people to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth" (1 Timothy 2:4). But there is one major problem to this: How can God make sinful men like us be reconciled to a holy and righteous God? This has been the question that have been on God's mind from eternity. How can He make us to be delivered from our fate, while still dealing with our sins? How can God remain righteous, while justifying us at the same time? God IS able to make our crooked and twisted straight and make our hearts straight before Him, for there is nothing impossible for God, but what would be the justification for Him to do this for us? How can He give us a new heart, without compromising His righteous character? This has been the great dilemma, the great puzzle that God, in His love, has taken upon Himself to solve: "How can I save man, and still be who I am?"

God must have thought of a million ways to make it possible to save fallen man from their fate: Should God look at the good deeds of man, and somehow make that be the justification for man's salvation? But then how shall justice be done for the damage and the offence that man has already caused against both God and fellow man? Would God sacrifice for Himself the blood of bulls and goats to cover the sins of man and to satisfy His wrath against man? But then how can blood of animals, that have no spirits, and who are not made in the image of God substitute for man? Shall angels be sacrificed for them? By no means! for why should angels be responsible for a man's sins, and also, why should angels be honoured and worshipped by men for this? And it is not as though there are any angels who love man enough be willing to do this for man. Above of all, even if He sacrificed all his angels and all the animals of this world, God's anger, wrath and fury against man's sins will not be satisfied. None of these possible options would satisfy God's righteousness.

It had to be a Man. But it couldn't be a sinful man, a son of Adam, since every man from Adam has inherited the spiritual genetic disease of sin. And it was not as though God could make a sinless man again, and make him be sacrificed for us all, lest all people adore and worship that man and not God. So what could God do? Can can God save man righteously, and so that all man may worship God for what He has done?

There was only one way, and it was that God send His only begotten Son, Jesus Christ, into the world. Christ was very Image and Glory of the invisible God, the Word of God, God the Son, who created the world with the Father and the Holy Spirit. This second person in the Trinity came down, as a Man, born of a virgin, born under the Law, so that He may fulfill the righteousness requirement of the Law by dying on the Cross for us. It was God who died for our sins, as a sinless man, taking upon Himself the blame of the sins of His chosen people. Upon Him was poured out all the righteous anger, wrath and fury of God, and because it was His own Son, God's anger was satisfied. Only in this way could God remain who He was, perfectly righteous and holy, yet still save man from their judgment. And God's promise is that whoever believes in the truth of this Good News, and trusts in the Lord Jesus Christ against that day, shall surely be saved from eternal fire: "For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life" (John 3:16).

We remember what Jesus Christ asked His Father on the night that He was betrayed and taken to be crucified: And going a little farther he fell on his face and prayed, saying, "My Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass from me; nevertheless, not as I will, but as you will" (Matthew 26:39). Christ was asking God if there was any other possible way for man to be saved without having Him to go through the wrath of God on the Cross. But God's answer was No. There was no other possible way. Jesus Christ had to take that cup of God's anger against the sin of mankind. It had to be Jesus Christ, because He was both God and Man. Only He could be the Lamb of God. Otherwise no man would have ever been forgiven, and Hell would be full, an heaven empty.

Christ chose the Cross, laid down His life voluntarily, because He loved us, and did not want to see us go to Hell. Even though it terrified Him to have to be forsaken and judged by His own Father on the Cross, He did it for you, and He did it so God can get the glory from you for doing this wonderful thing for you. Jesus Christ did not remain dead, but He rose again from the grave, and has ascended to the Father, to give everlasting life to all who believe this Gospel message and make it their own, by believing. And it is this risen Christ who will return to the world to judge the world for their sins, and to save those who believed from the eternal fire.

And the Bible says when you believe in the truth of this good news to be for yourself, and you trust in the person of Christ to save you, God will not leave you alone, but He will send His Holy Spirit to live in you. And the Holy Spirit will begin to untangle all the cords of sin, little by little. Just as Christ healed the old woman who had a bent back for 18 years, and made her to stand up straight, Christ will make all His ways straight before you. You will go from glory to glory and strength to strength, every day changing more and more into the image of Christ your Saviour.

It is not that this is what saves you, because you will never become perfect in this life time. The perfect righteousness of Christ has already saved you from the wrath of God if you believe. But by becoming more and more like Christ, you will PROVE that you are really a believer, and that you really are now a child of God. The proof of your justification will be your sanctification, whether or not you live a holy life, pleasing to the Father. By the fruit of the Holy Spirit, such as "love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control" (Galatians 5:22-23), you can know whether a person has truly believed in Jesus Christ, or not. Those who profess to be Christians with their mouths, but have none of these fruits, cannot be called true Christians, and their faith is not something given by God as a gift, but something man-made, superficial.

So what is stopping you from putting your trust in Christ? God has done what is impossible for man to do, that is, to save himself from his sin. God has solved the Greatest Riddle of the universe, by sending His Son to die for you. Truly nothing is impossible for God, nor is anything too hard for the Lord. It is by realizing what God has done for you in Christ, that all the questions in your life will also be solved. Jesus Christ is the Truth, the Way and the Life, and no man can come to God except through Him. There is no other meaning, no other reality in life. Only in Christ will you find all the answers of who you are, why we are here, why the world is the way it is, and what will be the answer to all the problems. And the Answer is Jesus Christ, and the Good News of what He has died for you so that you can be at peace with God, only if you believe in Christ. So turn to Christ today, and throw your whole self at Him, calling out His Name. Bible says that all who call upon His Name, in true faith, will be saved. Save yourselves from this corrupt and twisted generation. God has provided a way for you. Believe in the Lord Jesus Christ today and you will be saved.

Your Day in Court with God

The Bible says:

Hebrews 9:27 (ESV)
It is appointed for man to die once, and after that comes judgment,

Have a think about this verse for a minute. Firstly it is telling you something we all know: that it is appointed for us to die. Death is an unavoidable, sad fact of life. We see celebrities on the news, living in their prime, having their lives suddenly taken away. We mourn them for a while. Then they are forgotten, erased from our minds. The world keeps moving and spinning with or without them. It makes us think how empty and futile our lives are.

And we will all die likewise. We will pass from time into eternity in a matter of seconds. The verse says that death has been "appointed" to us, meaning that there is an exact time and date that has been set for you when you will be snatched away from among the land of the living. It may be sickness, or an accident, or in a natural disaster - but however you will die, it is certain that you will not last forever here. Like the grass of the field, you will wither away, and like the flower of the grass, your beauty and glory will fade.

But the Bible tells you that death is not a natural process of life. Death is not just another part of life. Try telling someone that at a funeral. They cannot believe what happened to their loved one, how they could be simply disappear from the face of the earth, never to be with them anymore. Death is not natural. That's why every death is so shocking and tragic. Human beings were originally made to last forever. But the Bible tells us that death came into this world because of SIN:
Romans 5:12 (ESV)
Therefore, just as sin came into the world through one man, and death through sin, and so death spread to all men because all sinned-

Our first parent Adam sinned, and death came to the world as punishment for sin. Sin is anything we do that does not please God, anything that does not glorify God. Sin is disobedience to God Word, and transgression against His Law, against any of His Commandments. Sin is a failure to reflect the good, loving, and perfectly holy image of God. Sin is a failure to do God's will, but doing your own will. Sin is a failure to live according to our conscience, which God has given as a guide to our soul. Anything that made us feel guilty or shameful is sin. Sin is that evil thing we have done or thought that we could never tell even to our closest friend or family, because we are so ashamed and embarrassed of it. We know that we deserve death for these things, and we know that these things are bad, because we often condemn others for doing these same things that we commit.

Everyone in the world has sinned. It doesn't matter who we are or where we were born, Bible says we were born slaves of sin:
John 8:34 (ESV)
Jesus answered them, "Truly, truly, I say to you, everyone who commits sin is a slave to sin.
This means that we cannot do anything but sin. Even our best thing that we have ever done was to God's eyes, sin. This is because God's standards are PERFECT. Think of it: God has NEVER, ever sinned or done or thought anything sinful. He is perfectly good and perfectly loving and perfectly holy. His eyes are purer than to look upon any evil. He cannot tolerate any evil, not even a tiny dot of sin is hateful to His eyes, and He must punish evil.

For example, let's say you went to a restaurant, and you ordered some soup. But in the soup there was one fly. Just one. Would you take it out and drink the soup like there was nothing wrong with it? No. You would immediately ask the soup to be taken away from you, even though it was just one fly. That is why it is enough for one sin to condemn a person to an eternity in Hell. Even one sin is an abomination to God, and it ruins the entire person. Adam only once ate the bite of a fruit, and the entire human race became sinners and subjected to death and eternal destruction. Then ask yourself how many times have you sinned, on just today? Hundreds of flies are in your soup. How then do you expect God to be satisfied because of your good works? Even your good works are defiled and contaminated by the decay of sin. You deserve death, like the rest of us. There is no one good that deserves life:
Romans 3:10-12 (ESV)
"None is righteous, no, not one; [11] no one understands; no one seeks for God. [12] All have turned aside; together they have become worthless; no one does good, not even one."

And the verse in Hebrews says that it is appointed man to die ONCE. You will not get a second chance in life. Do not believe in this lie that you will get another chance, or will come back to life as another being. There is only one life, and one death. And after death, Bible says you will either spend eternity in Heaven, in continual fellowship with God, or in Hell, being in endless pain and torment for the sins that you have committed against the everlasting God, who is Your Creator. Your eternal fate will be determined on how you go on the Day of Judgment.

Hebrews 9:27 says that after death you will face the judgment of God. Here is something that you don't realize: God is preparing a lawsuit against your soul. Every time that you have sinned and done, spoke or thought that which is not right in His sight, He has marked the time, date and the offense, and recorded them all His books. By these records you will be judged on the Day of Judgment:
Revelation 20:12 (ESV)
And I saw the dead, great and small, standing before the throne, and books were opened. Then another book was opened, which is the book of life. And the dead were judged by what was written in the books, according to what they had done.

Perhaps you have had another person make a lawsuit against you. And perhaps it was not successful because there were not enough evidence against you. But GOD is the one who is entering into judgment with you on the Last Day. He has gathered more than enough evidence to condemn you to an eternity in Hell. God sees all things, and does not need any one to witness to Him about what is in man (John 2:24-25). He knows all your thoughts, all your intents, and all your secrets. He will therefore need no one to give witness about you on the Day of Judgment, for your own conscience will bear witness, and agree with God as the records are being read out for your condemnation:
Romans 2:15-16 (ESV)
They show that the work of the law is written on their hearts, while their conscience also bears witness, and their conflicting thoughts accuse or even excuse them [16] on that day when, according to my gospel, God judges the secrets of men by Christ Jesus.

And since God is bringing a charge against you, a human being, there will be a suitable Judge who will judge between God and you. This is Jesus Christ. Jesus Christ is the Son of God. He is God who was came to earth as a human being, clothed with flesh, being born of a virgin. He is fully God, yet fully Man. That is why He called Himself the Son of Man, as well as the Son of God. And because He is both God and Man, He alone is the adequate Judge who will judge between God and you on the Last Day:
John 5:25-27 (ESV)
"Truly, truly, I say to you, an hour is coming, and is now here, when the dead will hear the voice of the Son of God, and those who hear will live. [26] For as the Father has life in himself, so he has granted the Son also to have life in himself. [27] And he has given him authority to execute judgment, because he is the Son of Man.
Every person will stand before Jesus Christ to be judged by Him for every sin they have committed. Everyone will see and believe on that Day that Jesus is real, and that He really did rise again from the dead, and that He is indeed the Son of God and the Judge of all the Earth.

Now perhaps you are thinking that God is good, and that He will forgive you on your Day in God's court. But because God is perfectly good, and just, He must punish your sins. Think of a judge you lets a murderer go because he is a "good" judge. You would not say he is good at all, but an EVIL judge with a crooked standard of right and wrong. God is not a corrupt judge, but He will righteously avenge all the evil that you have ever committed. Or perhaps you are thinking that God is love, so He will have compassion on you when you are judged. But because He IS love, He must punish you, since you have NOT been loving at all both to God nor to your fellow man. You haven't loved your God with all your heart, all your soul and all your strength, all the time. And neither you have loved all your neighbors perfectly, but you have hated most of them in your heart. And God can never allow an unloving person into His Kingdom.

So in your current state you will most surely die and be sentenced to an eternity in Hell. Hell is eternal because you can't pay your debts to God fully. Sinning against God is not like breaking a parking violation. You have hated God, who is your Creator, the one who gave you life, and rebelled against His Commandments. You have listened to the Devil and joined hands with him in treason against the King of Kings. You have made yourself God, living for yourself, serving yourself, pleasing yourself. You worship yourself, and give yourself credit for all things you have, instead of God the provider and sustainer of all things. How do you expect to go to Heaven, when you have done nothing that has pleased Him? You will spend an eternity in the lake of fire, and not even a drop of relief will be given to you. You will forever be locked up in a dark solitary cell of pain and misery, since you have ignored God and abused His blessings. This is the fate that awaits your soul.

But God has provided a way for you to be saved. The Good News that God is announcing to you is that He has made a way for you to have peace with Him. The Gospel is what God has done for you in Jesus Christ His Son. God laid on Jesus Christ the sins of the world, and made Him to be crucified on a Roman cross. This was an actual event in History. God the Son came down on Earth for this main reason: to live a perfectly righteous life for His people, and to be forsaken by God on the cross for the sins of His people. He did it because He loved the world, and did not desire us to be condemned without a hope of everlasting life.

Jesus Christ took the punishment that you and I deserve on the Cross, so that we can go free on the Day of Judgment. Not only that, Jesus Christ lived the perfect life that we could not live, so if we repent and put our trust only in Jesus, we can be seen as righteous before God, and deserve to go to Heaven on that Day. This is nothing we have done: we have done nothing but to condemn Jesus on the Cross with our sins. Christ died for us WHILE we were sinners, while we hated Him in our hearts.

What you must do is to put your trust in this Saviour, Jesus Christ. He did not remain dead, but He rose again from the dead on the third day, so that He may go to the right hand of God the Father, and be an Intercessor for all who trust in Him. Jesus Christ is the only Bridge between you and God. Though God is angry against your sins, and though you are His enemy, if you confess and are willing to turn from sin, and put your trust in Jesus Christ, He will turn away all His wrath against you. He will dismiss your case, and He will erase all the records that has been written against you, because Jesus has died for them all:
Colossians 2:13-14 (ESV)
And you, who were dead in your trespasses and the uncircumcision of your flesh, God made alive together with him, having forgiven us all our trespasses, [14] by canceling the record of debt that stood against us with its legal demands. This he set aside, nailing it to the cross.

And when you believe in Jesus, God's Spirit will come and dwell in you, and will be with you, and He will change your heart and make you more and more like Jesus Christ. You will be born again as a child of God, and Spirit of God will bear through you fruits that are pleasing to God. Holy Spirit, and the fruits that He will bear through you, will be a guarantee and evidence of your eternal life, until on that Last Day you will fully take possession of it in heaven:
Ephesians 1:13-14 (ESV)
In him you also, when you heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation, and believed in him, were sealed with the promised Holy Spirit, [14] who is the guarantee of our inheritance until we acquire possession of it, to the praise of his glory.

If you have not yet put your trust in Christ, please do so today. Jesus Christ will be your Judge, but He can also be your Advocate on that Day. He can plead and speak for your case by His blood. There is no salvation apart from Jesus Christ, for God has not given us another Name by which we must be saved. Do not put off getting right with God until later, for you don't know when God has appointed you to die and face Him. God wants you to turn to Him now, by the way of Jesus Christ. Faith in Christ is only one Way back to Him. Put your whole trust in Christ alone to save you. Receive Him as your only eternal life and as your salvation. Receive Him as your King. Throw away all your hope in yourself to make you right before God on that Day, or in any other god, and put your whole trust in Jesus, and you will not be condemned. This is God's promise to you. Believe in His promise!:
John 5:24 (ESV)
Truly, truly, I say to you, whoever hears my word and believes him who sent me has eternal life. He does not come into judgment, but has passed from death to life.

God is Love

1 John 4:7-12 (ESV)
Anyone who does not love does not know God, because God is love. [9] In this the love of God was made manifest among us, that God sent his only Son into the world, so that we might live through him. [10] In this is love, not that we have loved God but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins.

Anyone who does not love does not know God, because God is love.

You may have heard this last phrase many times that 'God is love'. The phrase does not just say that God is loving, or that God is full of love, but that God IS love. God is the definition and the epitome of love. Love is who God is. But what is love? Here in this verse we see that love is something that one does, as it says, "anyone who does not love, does not know God". Love is a verb, a doing word. Love is not a feeling, the warm and fuzzy feeling that we feel towards another. That is not God's love. God's love always works, and all God's works are love, because He Himself is love.

And because God is love, His law and His commandments towards us, His creatures, are also love. Read what Jesus said:
Matthew 22:37-40 (ESV)
And he said to him, "You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. [38] This is the great and first commandment. [39] And a second is like it: You shall love your neighbor as yourself. [40] On these two commandments depend all the Law and the Prophets."
Jesus is saying here that loving God and loving man was the summary of ALL of God's law and His statutes. God commands and expects us to be loving people. That is why God created us, so that we may love Him, our Creator, and love our fellow man as our own selves. This is our purpose in life. God wants us to love Him above all things, and not put other things above Him in our priority. God does not want us to make other things to replace Him, that we serve those things instead of Him. God wants us to use His name in a holy manner, that we may use His name only to give Him praise and honour. God also requires us to respect the weekly Sabbath, that we may rest, and acknowledge Him as the Creator who created the world in seven days. God wants us to honour our mothers and our fathers. He does not want us to hate others, or to call them names, nor want us to talk about others behind their backs. He does not want us to be unfaithful with our husbands and wives, and he does not even want us to look lustfully at those whom we are not married to. God does not want us to steal other people's things, even if it is the smallest thing that the other person do not notice. God does not want us to lie, and say things that which are not true about our neighbours. God does not want us to desire that which belongs to someone else, but that we be content with those things that we have. These are the things that our God who is love, expect us to do as people who were created in His image.

But we have not done these things. We have not loved. We have loved other things more than God. We have hated having God in our mind. We rarely think about this world as His creation, and we do not give thanks to Him for the things He has given us. We use His name lightly, and even use His name for a cuss word. We don't honor Him and give Him the glory as King of this world, but we instead think of Him as if He was one of His own creatures, and compare Him to a mere man or an animal, and even make statues or images to worship instead of Him. We don't love God. We also are not loving to our fellow man: We are disobedient to our parents; we have hated and had murderous and injurious thoughts of our neighbors; we are lustful in both heart and deed; we have stolen things from other people; we have lied and spoken falsehood against our neighbors; we have desired what others have. We are never content with what we have, but always lust after things we don't have, having greedy hearts. These things that we long for are like our gods that we serve, for whom we live and we devote our lives to, instead of the God that created us.

We are not people of love. We don't do any love. All the acts that appear 'loving' are always done for self-gain and for self-pleasure, but not really for that person. We don't love God and others, but we only love our selves, living for our selves and doing everything only for our own profit. We dare not sacrifice anything for others purely for the others' sake, but only if it makes us feel good or if there is something favorable for us in return. We are not patient, we are not kind, but we are envious, we are arrogant, we are rude, we insist on our own way, we are irritable, we are resentful. We are not love:
1 Corinthians 13:4-7 (ESV)
Love is patient and kind; love does not envy or boast; it is not arrogant [5] or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; [6] it does not rejoice at wrongdoing, but rejoices with the truth. [7] Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.

We don't perfectly and unconditionally love God and people. And this is a problem. Why? Because "anyone who does not love does not know God". And why is not knowing God a problem? Because it is eternal death:
John 17:3 (ESV)
And this is eternal life, that they know you the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom you have sent.
Jesus said knowing God is eternal life, which means not knowing God is not having this eternal life. God, who is love, cannot grant eternal life to a people who is not loving both to God and to people. God, because He IS love, must punish our acts of lovelessness. God is love, and therefore He HATES the acts of lovelessness that we have displayed. Our lovelessness does not reflect God's loving character, which we were created to reflect. We have failed His standards of love miserably, and therefore God must judge us eternally. He cannot stay in fellowship with us forever, since we haven't even come close to fulfilling His standard of love, by which we will be judged on the Day of Judgment. We, with all our lovelessness, are detestable to Him, and He will make us to be separated from His presence forever in Hell, a place where we will be punished forever for the lawless, evil, loveless crimes we have committed against this God of love.

In this the love of God was made manifest among us, that God sent his only Son into the world, so that we might live through him.

But the Good News is that God has made a way for us to be forgiven of our sins, that we may have eternal life and fellowship with Him forever. It is by the display of GOD's love towards unloving sinners. This above verse says that in this way God's love was made manifest to us: "that God sent His only Son into the world, so that we might live through Him". Out of His love, God sent His only Son into this world, to be born of a virgin, that He would come to earth as a human being. This God-man is Jesus Christ. Jesus Christ lived on this earth, and did many miracles, and healed many who were sick, even raising those who were dead. He did many great things, but the main purpose why He came to earth was to fulfill one mission: to die for the sins of His people and to rise again from the dead. God demonstrated His love toward sinners by taking the punishment, guilt, condemnation and the curse of their sins and placing them on the body of Jesus Christ His only begotten Son, and by crushing Him by the full force of His anger, killing Him on the Cross as a sacrifice for sins. This is the way God showed His love towards His people. And His promise is that anyone who trusts in this sacrifice of Jesus Christ is no longer condemned, but can have the assurance of eternal life with God:
John 3:16 (ESV)
"For God so loved the world,that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life.
This is the Gospel, the Good News, of Jesus Christ. It is the good news of God's love towards us. All we must do is to turn away from our loveless deeds, and to believe and trust in this Son of God to take us to heaven when we die. When we believe in Christ, we go to heaven not because of what we have done, since we have done nothing but to offend God with our lovelessness. But we get to go to heaven purely and only because of what Christ did on earth to fulfill all the righteous requirement of God's law of love, by His life, death and resurrection.

In this is love, not that we have loved God but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins.

This verse says truthfully that we have not loved God first, but it is God who loved us first. Indeed we have not loved God at all, but actually we have hated Him. We have offered Him nothing but our hatred. We have ignored Him, and have barely acknowledged Him our whole life. But see how great God's love was, that He sent His only Son to be a propitiation - which means the Satisfaction - for our sins. We are the ones who sinned, but it was Jesus Christ who paid the price. God's justice and His punishment was fully satisfied when His own Son, by His own will, chose to die for our sins. We haven't done anything worthy to deserve heaven, but we have done nothing but condemn the sinless Son of God with our sins. There is nothing we have done to receive this great gift of God. It is God who loved, because He is love, and this was the best act of love that He could offer us.

All that remains for you is to receive this love of God by putting your trust in this Satisfaction offering that God has made for your sins. Jesus Christ bled for you, so that all your sins may be forgiven, only if you believe in Him. Trust in Christ, and God will make you to be righteous before His eyes. Jesus Christ's perfect love to God and to man will be reckoned to be yours, if you only, by faith, reckon your sins to be crucified with Him on that cross. Throw yourself to Jesus Christ. He is still alive today, and He is the one whom God has appointed to be the Judge of all the earth. He will come back one day and call us to account everything we have done that was not loving. How will you escape this judgment on that Day without Christ? You will never escape, if you reject Jesus Christ today. There is no other name that God has given under heaven that we may be saved. Save yourself today. Turn away from your sins, and trust in Jesus Christ to be your righteousness, so that the love of God will come to you, and be in you to be a well that springs up to eternal life!:
John 4:13-14 (ESV)
Jesus said to her, "Everyone who drinks of this water will be thirsty again, [14] but whoever drinks of the water that I will give him will never be thirsty again. The water that I will give him will become in him a spring of water welling up to eternal life."