May 3, 2021 AND SUCH WE ARE
1 John 3: 1-3 “See how great a love the Father has bestowed upon us, that we should be called the children of God; and such we are. For this reason the world does not know us, because it did not know Him. Beloved, now we are children of God, and it has not appeared as yet what we shall be. We know that, when He appears, we shall be like Him, because we shall see Him just as He is. And everyone who has this hope fixed on Him purifies himself, just as He is pure.”
These verses are packed with life changing truths; to understand, to believe, and to embrace what is written will impact our life-our core being-in a dramatic way. We can causally read these verses and agree that they are really good verses, but somehow not allow the truths of what we read to penetrate our spirit and our heart. John begins by telling us to “See how great a love the Father has bestowed upon us.” We must ‘see’ the love God has for us; we can talk about the love of God and read about it, but nothing really happens until we ‘see’ the love God has for us personally. We may see the fruits and evidences of the love of God with our physical eyes, but the primary ‘seeing’ must be in our heart. Out of His love for us, we are His children. We cannot yet fully grasp what it means to be a child of God, but what we can understand of it certainly is a life changer; it changes our perspective of life at the core. Knowing beyond any shadow of doubt that God is our Father eliminates worry, fear, and doubts and gives us a secure hope. We should not be surprised that the world does not know us or understand us because it does not know God-we are indeed marching to a different drummer. We are His children now, but awesome things are coming-change is in air! We do not know just what we will be-but it will be fantastic. When He appears-and that could be any day now-WE WILL BE LIKE HIM! And WE WILL SEE HIM JUST AS HE IS! No human being has ever seen God AS HE IS-but we will. (Perhaps Adam and Eve saw God.) Somehow, this reality of us seeing God as He is and knowing that we will be changed-that we will become like Him-causes us to purify ourselves. (God does cleanse us, but we also must make the choice to lay aside what is impure.) Note: it is not suggested that we should purify ourselves-we will purify ourselves when we see what is in store for us. This purifying ourselves implies that we will have a desire to live holy, to rid ourselves of anything unlike Him. We know our Father now, but we are going to meet Him face-to-face!! We must be dressing ourselves up for this visit. As His children, we now resemble Him, but we are destined to become like Him---‘Like Father, like son.’ The key question for us is, is our hope fixed on Him? If it is, then proof of that is that we will be purifying ourselves just as He is pure-we will be getting ready to meet our Father, face-to-face.
2 Corinthians 7:1 “Therefore, since we have these promises, dear friends, let us purify ourselves from everything that contaminates body and spirit, perfecting holiness out of reverence for God.”
Blessings,
Buddy
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