John 3:16, “For God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son that whosoever believes in him, shall not perish but have eternal life.”

I grew up in a Baptist church where salvation meant that you recited a sinner’s prayer and after repeating these words you became a new person.   Now don’t get me wrong, I love that old sinner’s prayer and when the opportunity arises I will encourage someone to pray that prayer as a declaration of faith in receiving Jesus as their Savior.

However, I recall as a teenager I had a friend who used to go to church with me and one day announced he wanted to become a member of our church.  Well, I knew to become a member you had to have a testimony where you could tell a story of how you realized you were a sinner, you repented of your sins and prayed a sinners prayer.  I asked my friend how he became a Christian and he said, “Well, I think it just came about gradually.”  Boy I knew he was trouble.  He had to appear before the membership board and the first question he would be asked is when he became a Christian.  I remember when he meet with the board I was sitting outside sweating because I just knew my friend was sure to fail the sinner’s prayer test.  When the door open my friend walked out with a smile as all the members of the board shook his hand and thanked him for his testimony.  I was shocked.  My father served on the board and I asked him about it and the fact that he could not point to a specific date that he got saved.  My father said that he has heard many people pray a sinner’s prayer but they never got saved.  Salvation is matter of your heart not the words you say.

To this day, fifty years later I am still wondering when I got saved.  I mean I prayed the sinner’s prayer, but I am not really sure that is when I got saved.  Somewhere during my life time I prayed the sinner’s prayer in my heart and I know that was my salvation experience.

John 3:16 tells us that God so loved the world.  Now if we just use the Greek text we find that God agaped the world.  Agape in the Greek is the highest form of love, it is unconditional.  Based upon the Greek text everyone in the world should be saved as God’s love for us is unconditional and therefore no matter how much we sin He will still love us and how can he send someone He loves to hell.

However, Jesus did not speak this word love in Greek, He spoke it in Aramaic and the word used in the Aramaic text is chav.  If this was to mean that the whole world would be saved because of His love He would have used the Aramaic word racham. Both words mean love, but there is difference.

Let me explain it this way. A young man takes his best girl to dinner.  A romantic, candle light dinner with a table cloth, flowers and soft music in the background.  They sit and speak their hearts with each other.  As the evening draws to a close he gently takes his beloved’s hand, looks into her eyes and for the first time in their relationship he says those words, “I love you.”  No when this young woman left home for her date she gave her mother a peck on the check as she said a cheerful little “luv ya.” Then to her father she blew him a kiss and said,” I luv ya hona.”  But now as she looks into the eyes of this young man who with all his heart spoke those words, “I love you” she knows she can’t say a glib, “luv ya hona.”   That would be chav – love. What this young man would be looking for is racham – love. When he said, “I love you” he was speaking chav – love.  Now this young woman has a choice.  She could say,” You’re creeping me out, let’s get out of here.”   His words “I love you” would remain chav.  She could say, “That is sweet, but I still have college, a career and I want to travel, and do things, I mean I am just not ready to say, I love you. I mean we have some great times together, you give me lots of goodies and I enjoy being with you, but I am not ready to say, “I love you.”   This young man’s love for her would not change, but it would still be chav.  He would probably say, if he is a gentleman, “I understand, you have your life and I don’t want to interfere, but remember I still will always love you.  If you ever change your mind, I will be here.”  But we all know the odds are he will eventually chav – love someone else and move on.

But then if she should respond with “I too love you and I want to grow to love you more and more, I want to spend my life with you, build a home with you, have children with you and build a family together and I never want to leave your side.”  Then chav suddenly becomes racham.  That young man’s words, “I love you” came out as chav, but when his beloved repeated the words from her heart, his “I love you” suddenly changes and become racham.

This is salvation, Jesus has spoken to you chav and he is waiting for you to turn his chav into a racham.  You can be creeped out and say, hey I’m out here.”  You might even say “That is so sweet, Jesus loves me.  And, yeah, I like you too, I mean I really like that music at church, the hand clapping and watching Charlie swing from the chandelier, Jesus you are a lot of fun, but to really say I love you, well that means change, sacrifice, spending my life with you and well I have things I need to do first.”  Jesus, the gentleman that He is, would respond, “I was hoping to build a life with you, bring others into our family that I could love, and that you would come and live in my house, but if you don’t want to be married to me, to live with me, I understand, I won’t force you to live with me even after you die.  But know this, I will always love, chav you.”

So if you have never said those words, “I love you” to Jesus, know that you are sitting right now at a candle light dinner, He is holding your hand, looking into your eyes and saying I love – chav you.”  It is up to you to miraculously change that chav into racham by simply saying from your heart, “I too love you and I want to learn to love with all my heart, I want to spend the rest of my life with you I want to have spiritual children with you that we can build a family and I want to live in your house for all eternity.”   That is salvation. Yeah we have been rascals and we need to say a sinner’s prayer, but that is not enough, we need to change his chav into racham and learn to love Him with all our hearts, soul and mind.