Today, Thursday July 29
“We Are God’s Children Now” 1 John 3:1-3 See what kind of love the Father has given to us, that we should be called children of God; and so we are. The reason why the world does not know us is that it did not know him. Beloved, we are God’s children now, and what we will be has not yet appeared; but we know that when he appears we shall be like him, because we shall see him as he is. And everyone who thus hopes in him purifies himself as he is pure.
When I was a young kid growing up in the state of Texas, my dad was a pastor and we were very poor. I have often said, “That the poor people called us poor.” We also moved so frequently that I never felt like I had any friends or was ever accepted by the kids around me. (I went to thirteen different school by the time I graduated.) So, I lived in my own little world and would often daydream what it would be like to have a powerful rich daddy, maybe who was even the President of the United States. It was a fantasy world!
Of course that never happen for me as a child, but one day, February 21, 1971, as a nineteen year old teenager, in Cincinnati Ohio, I found Jesus Christ as my personal Lord and Savior and I was born again into a new family! The family of God.
John reminds us here in these verses that this happened because of God’s great love for us. He wrote in John 3:16, “For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever would believe in Him would not perish, but have eternal life.” God’s love does not save me but it was His love that sent His Son to pay the price for my sins which was death on a cross! And now He can save me because the sin price has been satisfied and if I receive Him, He does a wonderful miracle.
Paul wrote about this in Colossians 1:13-14, “He has delivered us from the domain of darkness and transferred us to the kingdom of his beloved Son, in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins.” John says it this way in John 1:12-13, “But to all who did receive him, who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God, who were born, not of blood nor of the will of the flesh nor of the will of man, but of God.”
At the moment of our new birth we are transferred from the family of the devil into the family of God and “we are God’s children now…” (v. 2). Present tense, not some day in the future!!!!! What can I say!!!!!! My Father created the universe, He is in charge of everything, and He owns everything! And He calls me His beloved child! I am eternally loved and accepted by Him! We can now love God, because He first loved us! (1 John 4:19)
Oh, my friend, be encouraged to know, that if you have received Jesus as your Savior, God calls you His child! And this is not a fantasy world! It is the “real deal!” Awesome!!!!!
God bless!
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