A Bunch of People

In May of this year the estimated population of the world was reported to be 7.6 billion. For a guy who grew up on a farm, went to a school in a town of 500, in a graduating class of 60, whose first job was in the same small school attended for 12 years, grades one through twelve, and the attendance in churches pastored was 30 to 70 in morning bible study, 7.6 billion does not compute. That number boggles my mind! I imagine most people have a problem understanding a number that large.

I wonder how many people have lived since the beginning of the human race. I looked it up, but given the accompanying information with the number estimated I don’t believe it is correct. Consider another estimation; how many of the total number of people created by God will be numbered in heaven? No one knows but God. Of the total number of people God has created who has been the most important? Which of us, the 7.6 billion of us, living today is God’s favorite? I have known a few people who might be very disappointed when they hear the answer. There is a verse in the Bible that tells us. ““For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life. For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him.”

The world of humans today consists of somewhere around 7.6 billion people. We can conclude from John 3:16 that God loves all 7.6 billion of us the same, therefore we all hold the same importance for God. Somewhere in the world there is a little boy living in the most far out of way place and known only by his parents and will never be known outside his village. In God’s eyes this small boy is as important as the wealthiest most well known man in the world. God loves him as much as he does the person you considered to be most worthy of God’s love.

And there you are. You may not think you are important. You may feel unworthy of God’s love because you just can’t seem to live the way you think you should. Your importance to God is not based on your status in the world. God’s love for you does not depend on the good you haven’t done or the bad you have done. God’s great love for you and the fact that you are extremely important to him are evident because you are his precious creation. Only our infinite God could pick you out of 7.6 billion people at this moment and say, “I love you so much that I gave my Son to die for you so that you might have eternal live. You are incredibly important to me!”

Is there anyone who can even come close to understanding how God could single out each person of the total number of people living in our world today and say, “I love you enough to let my Son die for you?” We don’t have to understand God. All we need to do is believe in his Son Jesus Christ and trust him to do everything he says he has done to save us from our sin..