Dave preached from 1 John 3:1-3 this morning (‘probably the favourite of all my favourite scriptures.’) We are, John reminds his readers, ‘born of God’ and thus we are ‘children of God’. This fact of our identity – not a label, but a description of who we really are in God – is needed if we are to focus on the concept of the majesty of God, as A. W. Tozer put it (something he said the church nowadays had lost). The basic foundations that we have, that understanding of what our lives are all about at present, must be big enough to support the structure of Kingdom life to which God calls us.
Both John and Paul (in Eph 1:17-19) wanted God’s people to get a better understanding of God: of His holines, His might, His power and His glory. John talks about the nature of true conversion and spiritual life in these verses (and again in John 3:3-6 and in 1 John 3:9). When we are born again into God’s family and become children of God, this is something which will never change. There are many changes that will happen to us, but we will never be any more God’s child than we are right now. However, the world cannot see this (because it did not know Jesus) and does not recognise this fact. We don’t see Jesus completely right now, but we have glimpsed His beauty and wonder and so we are being transformed into His likeness. Our likeness is as yet partial, not complete, but John assures us that when we finally see Him fully, we will be fully like Him.
That transformation, which we eagerly await, has begun now (2 Cor 3:18). This vision of Christ, fixing our eyes on Jesus (as the writer to the Hebrews commands us in Hebrews 12:2), is crucial for holiness. Imagine your life, with none of the tainted affections you now possess and none of the cash you now have in the bank and understand that you will look back on these trinkets as though they were nothing but sand and sawdust, for when we see Jesus, there will be no more ‘greener pastures’. It is simply hypocrisy to say you want to be like Jesus at some indeterminate point in the future but have no interest in being like Jesus now (‘Lord, make me holy, but not yet!’) Instead, we need to set our lives in the direction of Christlikeness now with growing anticipation, learning from the limited vision of Jesus we have now so that our hearts are weaned from the downward pull of the desires of the flesh, the desires of the eyes and the pride of possessions. The fountain of His life is fresher than the drain of this world, so let’s fix our eyes not only on a better world, but on how the Master will make us better, because we truly are His children.