1 John 3:1-3
"1 How great is the love the Father has lavished on us,
that we should be called children of God! And that is what we are!
The reason the world does not know us is that it did not know Him.
2 Dear friends, now we are children of God,
and what we will be has not yet been made known.
But we know that when He appears, we shall be like Him,
for we shall see Him as He is.
3 Everyone who has this hope in Him purifies himself, just as He is pure."
If there are more people like me out there, sometimes we just need to hear and be assured of the love of God. A good verse for us in those times is found in the opening line of 1 John, chapter 3. This is one of my all time favorite Bible verses! I am excited to jot down some thoughts about it today :)!
God does not withhold His love from His children. He is our model of a perfect parent, and He LAVISHES (gives freely to, spends generously on, bestows on, heaps on, showers with) His love on us. So when I study the ways that God treats us, I learn what it means to love right, and to love richly. Then when I think about being loved like that, it comforts me, and brings me great joy. As a parent myself, I can always learn more on how to better love my children. I want to do this by fully following His example.
Some of the ways God loves us is by sacrificing what is dear to Him (His Son, Jesus) in order to show us the greatness and sincerity of His love. Although Jesus is now back in Heaven, sitting at the right hand of God, He bears the scars that He took for our sin. There was great cost involved in paying the penalty for our sin with His death. 2 Corinthians 5:21 says:
God disciplines and convicts us when we walk in sin, because He longs to teach us the joy of walking in the newness of the life He offers us, but He also offers complete and total forgiveness of all sin when we come to Him with a repentant heart. Our wrong actions may sometimes bring with them deep, and sometimes lifelong, consequences, but He holds no record of our wrongs against Him; He forgives freely.
"For He made Him who knew no sin to be sin for us,
that we might become the righteousness of God in Him."
God disciplines and convicts us when we walk in sin, because He longs to teach us the joy of walking in the newness of the life He offers us, but He also offers complete and total forgiveness of all sin when we come to Him with a repentant heart. Our wrong actions may sometimes bring with them deep, and sometimes lifelong, consequences, but He holds no record of our wrongs against Him; He forgives freely.
When I read this verse, where it says "...that we should be called children of God", I can't help but think of a group of children in an orphanage. These kids are abandoned, and they feel lost and alone. They all have different ways of coping with it. Some of them cry a lot, some of them build an imaginary world where life is better than the real life circumstances around them. Some of them don't know how else to handle the pain in their own hearts, and so they cope by trying to hurt others like they themselves are hurting. This orphanage is a sad and lonely place, with no one to love all the souls that are starving for that very thing - to be loved.
I imagine a man coming to the orphanage, I imagine him coming to spend time with them, feed them, and tuck them in at night. He sees a great need, a deep void in these children's lives - they NEED a father, someone who will parent them and give them the love and stability, the security they need. The next morning, when the children wake up, he gives them an offer, an invitation... Any child that wants to come live with him is welcome! He wants to adopt them, to call them his own. He wants to love them and care for them, to be their father. He extends that invitation with kindness, and promises to be back that evening, after having readied his house in preparation for the new family members that will be joining him.
Now these children all have a choice. They can accept this incredible gift this man is extending to them, or they can reject it, and go on living as they did before the man came. Some of the children stand by the gate, waiting for the man to pull up in his car (or maybe he'll need a bus) that evening When he arrives, he gathers them up, and away they go. He promises to give them all that they have been missing all their life. The children are elated! What they always dreamed about, what they longed for, has come true! They have a dad, and they are his children.
Now these children all have a choice. They can accept this incredible gift this man is extending to them, or they can reject it, and go on living as they did before the man came. Some of the children stand by the gate, waiting for the man to pull up in his car (or maybe he'll need a bus) that evening When he arrives, he gathers them up, and away they go. He promises to give them all that they have been missing all their life. The children are elated! What they always dreamed about, what they longed for, has come true! They have a dad, and they are his children.
"How great is the love the Father has lavished on us,
that we should be called children of God!
AND THAT IS WHAT WE ARE!"
God is my dad. I am His child! I love that! Having been blessed to grow up with earthly parents who loved me, I have had a small taste of what this feels like, and it is a very secure place to be.
I spent a fair bit of time wondering how the second part of verse 1 tied into that first part. It says that "The reason the world does not know us is that it did not know Him". As I thought it through, I realized that for me, the best way to try and grasp the meaning in conjunction with the first part of the verse was to go back to the orphanage scene.
Previously in the book of 1 John, we have seen the difference between the children of God and the people who are not a part of God's family. So now I imagined the children that had decided to stay at the orphanage, the ones who rejected the gift that the man was offering them all. Like me at first, you may be thinking, "Why would there be any children left there? Didn't they all choose to go with the man, to the much better life that he was offering them?" At first thought, it only makes sense that they all would have jumped up to go with him, but as I thought of the types of children that would probably be at the orphanage, I started thinking...
Surely there were some kids there who were too scared to go. They couldn't get over their fear of the unknown, and they were too hesitant to trust that the man was really speaking the truth. Some of them might have suffered through a lot of hurts, a lot of rejection, and they were scared that they weren't good enough to qualify, that the man would somehow reject them if they came. These children chose to hold on to these feelings of fear, to nurse them and dwell on them, and they missed their chance for something better.
Some of the kids probably laughed off the twinge of hope for a better life that wanted to spring up inside of them. In a panic to hide what they feared others might see as weakness, they spoke gruffly, and decided to make fun of and belittle the ones who stood at the gate, waiting for the man's return. "He's never going to come anyway", they taunted, and when he finally did come, they looked for flaws in him that would convince them that they had made the right choice to stay. "He's going to use you to clean his house, to work for him, he'll be a slave driver!" they exclaimed. "He's too rich to need us, he's got something bad up his sleeve. You're crazy to believe him and go with him!" they called from the shadows. Some of the other children followed these obstinate ones, and lingered back, finally turning away as the last of the 'accepting' children ran up to the man's welcoming embrace. So as the car pulled away, bringing the children within it to a warm home, a delicious supper, soft clean beds to sleep in at night, and the joy of living in a home filled with a parent's unconditional love, those other orphans remained in the cold, cramped building where they had chosen to stay.
These orphans drew a dividing line the day they rejected the man's invitation. If they will not cross it, coming into the warmth of his wonderful home, they will lose touch with the children who used to inhabit the orphanage with them. Because they rejected the man, they do not have a relationship with him, and so, they also do not know those who are now his children, under his care.
This is maybe a bit of a long story, but for me, it seemed to help me to grasp this verse in a deeper way. We, as people, are the children in the cold orphanage. God is that kind man, and just like the man came to spend time with them in their conditions, Jesus came down to live with man so that He might experience what we experience in our human frailty. Because of God's great love for us, we are offered a rich new life through Jesus (He's the Son of a great King, after all), like the kids were offered by the man when he invited them to become his children, and to come live with him. This invitation is our salvation - it is what will save us from our hopeless circumstances, and what will deliver to us a glorious future with Him!
When we have made that decision to accept the gift that God offers us through Jesus, we become a part of His family, but the people who reject that gift are left outside of that family circle by their own choosing. We are different now than the people 'of the world', and they do not understand us. Because of this, we may sometimes feel like strangers in this world, and often rejected by the people of this world. This makes sense - it shouldn't alarm us. We shouldn't be fitting in perfectly with the ways of this world anymore, because we don't truly belong here. As children of God, we belong to His kingdom. The world does not know us anymore, because it doesn't know Jesus, but it's ok. We are secure in Christ.
In verse 2, we read of even better things to come in the future that awaits us. Right now, we are children in God's family, "...and what we will be has not yet been made known." God is not nearly finished with us yet - in fact, when I read these following verses, I get the feeling that He is just getting started!
When I look at my own young children, I see personalities developing, and different gifts and talents, strengths and weaknesses emerging as they grow. Some of these things might hint at what they might decide to pursue when they grow up, but as of yet, I have no clue what they will do with their lives. Later on, looking back when they're grown, we may be able to see how certain things and circumstances led to the professions they chose, but right now they are only children, and we don't know what they will be when they grow up.
John tells us here that right "now we are children...". A child is in many ways unlike an adult. A child needs a lot of help to perform tasks that an adult can easily do. The younger a child is, the more help they need to complete the simplest task, and while an older child can do much more than a really young one, he is still a child. While being different than an adult, they are though, the same person that they will be when they are mature. What I am getting at is this: I believe that we are like this child I was explaining. When we are first born again, into God's family, through our faith in Jesus Christ, we become a new creation. We are a child of God now, and so, our new spiritual life begins! 1 Corinthians 5:17 says, regarding our new birth,
"Therefore, is anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation;
the old has gone, the new has come."
At the moment when we receive Christ into our hearts and lives, we are no longer spiritually dead, but rather, we receive eternal life. Even though we are promised eternal life, and even though we have started on this new journey with this forever life ahead of us, there are some things that have not yet been revealed to us. Although the Bible gives us many amazing hints at what this kind of life one day will be like, we can't fully picture it now. It's so like a child's journey to adulthood. We can imagine what it will feel like to drive, to move out on our own - to be mature - but we cannot experience it until we are there. We have to go through the different stages of maturity until we reach the point where we are considered to be a responsible, mature adult (for many of us, this comes many years after we reach the physical age of 18 - or 21 :)!
God starts the maturing process with us as soon as we are 'born again', just like a parent does with her child as soon as he is born, and it continues as we slowly become more sanctified (or more holy) in our Christian walk. We reach different stages of spiritual maturity, but as long as we are on this Earth, we cannot see what we will become! We can only dream and imagine, believing that we will eventually get there.
"But we know..."... We know, as humans, that when a child is born, if that child lives, he or she WILL eventually grow up and become an adult. We don't have to blindly hope that this will happen, but rather, we can have full assurance that, given the right amount of time and circumstance, this will happen. In the same way, as Christians, we can have full assurance in our future, as it is told us in the Bible. When Christ appears, we are told that "...we shall be like Him...". Philippians 3:21 says:
"[The Lord Jesus Christ]...will transform our lowly bodies
so that they will be like His glorious body."
We will still be this new creation that was talked about, the one that happens as soon as we believe, but we will be changed, transformed. As I was searching the Scriptures for some more verses that explain what our new bodies will be like (the ones we receive when He appears), I came across a most wonderful passage describing it so beautifully. I will just quote a few key words or phrases here, but I would recommend reading 1 Corinthians 15, especially from verse 35 to the end of the chapter, to get a fuller picture. We are told that we will "bear the likeness" of Christ's resurrected body. This body will be:
...imperishable (verse 42)
...raised in glory (verse 43)
...raised in power (verse 44)
...immortal (verses 53 and 54)
...victorious over sin and death (verses 54-57)
Imagine for a moment a body that has not been ravaged by sin in some way. No pain, no disease, no scars! Imagine a mind, a will, and emotions that are free of sin! No anger, no sadness, no hurt or unwelcome thoughts. It sounds too perfect (remember those kids at my imaginary orphanage? Some of them would be thinking that there had to be a catch somewhere), but it's not out of our reach! That is the promise we have been given for our future!
The amazing thing for me is the thought that, perfect as our own bodies will be, "bearing the likeness of the Man from Heaven" (1 Cor. 15:49), it is not our own perfection that we will be glorying in. No, the second part of that sentence says, "...for we shall see Him as He is." That will be glory! Seeing our God for the first time with completely opened eyes! Seeing Him plainly, falling at His feet, worshipping Him for the first time with a completely purified heart!
So this is the kind of hope I have. I have this hope, not because I am misled or full of arrogant pride, but because the Bible tells me that I can have it. The final verse I am writing on today tells us that:
"Everyone who has this hope in Him purifies himself, just as He is pure."
As I sit here, tears rolling down my face at the thought of SEEING MY LORD one day, I feel the joy of the purification process taking place in my life.
God is purity. He is perfect, without sin - holy. Believing in Him purifies us. Just being His child, being under His grace, brings about a beauty in our lives, just from knowing Him. He has given us a new life through His Son Jesus, and like Galatians 2:20 says:
"...it is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me..."
When we are focused on that, focused on Christ, and what He is doing in our lives and the lives of His children, and when we focus on our hope in a glorious future with Him, our impurities are made to fall away, because there is no longer room for the thoughts that cause those impurities in our lives. Where there are pure thoughts, there will be purer actions, and thus, more pure lives. That is why, in Philippians 4:8, we are encouraged to think about things like this:
"Finally, brothers, whatever is true, whatever is noble,
whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely,
whatever is admirable - if anything is excellent
or praiseworthy - think about such things."
And that is why, in Colossians 3:1 we are told to:
"...set [our] hearts on things above, where Christ is seated at the right hand of God.
Set [our] minds on things above, not on earthly things.
For [we] died, and [our] life is now hidden with Christ in God.
When Christ, who is [our] life, appears,
then [we] also will appear with Him in glory."
A wonderful eternity awaits those who are willing to embrace Jesus as Lord and God of their lives. My prayer is that many will be added to the number of people who are already waiting expectantly for our Lord to return to take us home to be with Him!
***I would like to dedicate this blog to my father, who has shown me what it means to eagerly wait for Christ's return, and to his father (my Grandpa), who is already in glory! This passage of Scripture is very special to me, but I know that it was special to them first!
