1How 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. 2Dear 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. 3Everyone who has this hope in him purifies himself, just as he is pure. (1 John 3:1-3)
The intimacy of this truth is staggering. We all have different experiences of being the children of our earthly parents. For some of us, it was not easy growing up to sense being cherished and welcomed over and over by our parents. But what John is saying here is that our earthly experience is not as deep as the truth that we are truly children of God. We have come home, to our real home in God, the home we were always meant to one day know and enjoy. God heals our past as he not only says we are his children, but makes us truly his children in his son Jesus.
God has made us His children truly, really in Christ. We are now his daughters and sons, and while it is sometimes painfully obvious to us that we are still not living in that truth completely, we can set our hope in his completion of this work he has started in us. John wants to remind his readers of this awesome truth to encourage them to abide, live, obey out of hope in the greater work of God in our lives and in the lives of others.
Peace and love,
Sue
"Then Jesus said to them all: "If anyone would come after me, he must deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me". (Luke 9:23)
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