What Love!
1 John 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.
What love – god has called us His children. He has adopted us, who were undeserving, into His family.
We were the prodigals who wasted his inheritance and dragged his name through the mud. We were the wayward children who broke his heart.
Yet, He welcomed us home, and robed us like royalty. He gave us authority and made us rulers in his home. He honored us after we shamed Him. What love!
The world doesn’t understand us, because it did not understand him. The have no concept of the true heart of a Christian. The thought Christ a fool for his idealism and his senseless death.
Yet, it was his supposed foolishness that saved us. It was his death that gave us life.
The world has no fellowship with us – nothing in common, because we are of the light and they are of the darkness.
"It doth not yet appear what we shall be…" –
1 Corinthians 2 9 But as it is written, Eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, neither have entered into the heart of man, the things which God hath prepared for them that love him.
We really don’t know what heaven will be like. We have hints, but describing heaven to a human is like describing blue to a blind man.
But we do know this, and this is enough – when we see Christ in his glory, we will be like him.
We are being transformed by His Spirit – conformed to his image and likeness – changed by his power.
When we stand face to face with him, we will be complete – finished products.
If you have this hope in you, you will want to live to honor him. You will want to be like him now.
Ask yourself –
Do you want to be Christ-like, or do you just want to have fun?
Do you want to be Christ-like, or do you just want to be happy?
Do you want to be Christ-like, or do you just want to be used by God?
To be like Christ – to be conformed to his image is our goal.