Daily Devotional #25 (1 John 3:1-3)

In 1 John 3, John gives us three reasons why we want to live Godlike lives. Today, we will consider the first. 

1 John 3:1-3 reads, "See what great 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 Christ appears, we shall be like him, for we shall see him as he is. ³ All who have this hope in him purify themselves, just as he is pure."

That which is obvious about these three verses is that they describe the love of the Father for His children. This is the first motivation behind the Believer in the Lord Jesus wanting to live a godly life. Notice the emphasis of each of these verses. In v.1 the emphasis is on what we are. "See what great love the Father has lavished on us, that we should be called children of God! And that is what we are!" In v.2 the emphasis is on what we shall be. "Dear friends, now we are children of God, and what we will be has not yet been made known. But we know that when Christ appears, we shall be like him, for we shall see him as he is." And in v.3 the emphasis is on what we should be. "All who have this hope in him purify themselves, just as he is pure."

When my oldest son, Greg,  was a little boy I put him to bed nearly every night. On one night, as I lay with him on his bed, I asked him, "Greg, is there anyone who loves you more than your old dad?" Greg paused, and then said, "yep, God." So true are those words. There is no one who loves us more than our Father in heaven. According to Romans 5:8, we discover, "When we were without strength," when we were helpless, when we were unable to make any contribution to the salvation that we so desperately needed, when there was not a thing we could do about it, we were utterly bankrupt, "when we were without strength, at the right time Christ died for the ungodly," -- for us. But it does not stop there, it goes on even further. "While we were yet sinners Christ died for us." 

Of course, not all mankind are the children of God. Biblically speaking, only those who receive the Lord Jesus as Savior are the children of God. In Galatians 3:26 we read, "So in Christ Jesus you are all children of God through faith."

Finally, Max Lucado said it well when he said, "To live as God's child is to know that you are loved by your Maker not because you try to please him and succeed, or fail to please him and apologize, but because he wants to be your Father. Nothing more."