God cannot administer mercy at the expense of truth. He cannot uphold truth at the expense of mercy. But they have met together now at Calvary. There righteousness and peace have kissed each other. God can now uphold both His mercy and His truth, both His righteousness and His peace. With the coming of His Son, He has found a way to give us both His peace and His righteousness. Therefore mercy and truth are no longer at odds.16

Understanding the lengths God went to in order to reconcile us to Himself makes it easy to see why so many Christians see John 3:16 as the most endearing verse in the Bible: “For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life.” At the cross, justice and mercy, grace and truth, righteousness and peace, flow simultaneously from the love of God.

When Rachelle Friedman attended her bachelorette party just before her wedding, she was about to realize the fulfillment of a dream: walking down the aisle to marry her sweetheart, Chris Chapman. That marriage took place—a year later. But instead of walking, Rachelle rolled down the aisle in a wheelchair. A freak poolside accident at the party left Rachelle paralyzed from the waist down.

Rachelle and Chris postponed their wedding for a year, but not their love. Chris said that after the accident he never thought, “ ‘What am I going to do?’ It was, ‘What are we going to do.’… It was one step at a time.”17 Their lives and love are going strong with no looking back. A tragic circumstance changed the look of their love—wheelchairs, an access van, lots of physical therapy—but not its loyalty.

That’s how God’s love is:

No matter what you have done…

No matter how far you have fallen…

No matter what you’ve heard the enemy whisper in your ear…

God’s love never quits. He loves you. He always has. He always will.

FIVE

God Wrote His Love in Red

For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life.

—JOHN 3:16

Many years ago, in the little English village of Brackenthwaite, there lived a quiet and lonely man named William Dixon. His wife had died years before, and later he had lost his only son. Dixon often could be seen sitting by his window, watching the world go by and smiling at the happy families on the streets.

One day he looked out and saw a neighbor’s home on fire. Other neighbors were already gathering, scrambling for water and shouting for help. Dixon ran out and joined them just as an elderly woman was pulled from the flames.

“Who else is inside?” someone shouted above the commotion.

“My little grandson!” she gasped through smoke-filled lungs. “Upstairs—trapped!”