Prayer for Divine Guidance

Heavenly Father, I ask that your Holy Spirit bless and enlighten me as I read, reflect and rest in the boundless riches of salvation that Christ Jesus has won! Abba Father, draw me closer into the Divine Dance with You, Your Son, and Holy Spirit to continually transform my life here on earth to taste life with You in Heaven! Amen.

Reflection

When you read the Bible or hear in sermons that God is love, how sure are you that God loves you? Or, on a scale of 1 to 10, how assured are you of God’s love for you personally? I ask you these questions having talked with so many Christians who are unsure that God really does love them. They know it in their heads, but God’s love has yet to make it into their hearts. The tragedy of sin is that it blinds us to the reality of God’s love for us, even at our worst.

The apostle John writes in His gospel and letters as a seasoned old man who had walked with Jesus in His days on earth and walks with Him still. John had breathed Jesus’ love and been transformed by it. He had leaned on Jesus’ breast and stood at the foot of the cross. He witnessed the empty tomb.

So, John dips his pen and writes with astonishment:

“See what love the Father has given 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. Beloved, we are God’s children now; what we will be has not yet been revealed. What we do know is this: when he is revealed, we will be like him, for we will see him as he is.” 1 John 3:1-2

John begins not with a lecture but with amazement in the original Greek, (idete): “See!” “Behold!” “Look!” John’s next word “what”, in Greek, (potapos), expresses wonder, having the idea: “from what country, what nation, or tribe”; “of what sort or quality”. “It is as if the Father’s love is so unearthly, so foreign to this world, that John wonders from what country it may come.” (John Stott, Commentary on 1 John)

This love that “the Father has given us” is qualitatively far from beyond our world: “that we should be called children of God.” To be called God’s children is more than a mere title or name, but is our new being and relationship. John drives home this point, emphasizing: “and that is what we are.” We are more than forgiven or saved, we are God’s children! We have been caught up into Jesus’ relationship with His Father; this is the meaning of our adoption (Galatians 4:4-5) and is the heart of the Gospel (John 1:12). God who exists in eternal loving communion – Father, Son, and Holy Spirit – bent low to bring us home to Himself.

Knowing how prone we are to forget, John wants to say it again: “Beloved, we are God’s children now.” Now! Not sometime in our far-off future, but now! This is not wishful thinking but objective truth! The full revelation of what this will mean for us is yet to come: “what we will be has not yet been revealed.” We live by faith in this interval between present reality and ultimate revelation of our identity: “now…not yet.“

John explains that what we will ultimately be is hidden from us now: “what we will be has not yet been revealed.” But this one thing we can know for sure: “when he is revealed, we will be like him, for we will see him as he is.”

Ahh! Can you imagine, seeing Jesus “as he is”! And seeing Jesus “as he is” will transform us. We will be “conformed to the image of God’s Son, in order that he might be the firstborn within a large family” (Romans 8:29). We will be like Jesus, forever delighting in the Three in One dance of eternal love. Such is God’s love for you and me!