1
John 3:1-2
"SEE
WHAT an incredible quality of love the Father has given us that we
should be permitted to be named and called and counted the children of God!
And so we are! The reason that the world does not know (recognize, acknowledge)
us is that it does not know (recognize, acknowledge) Him. Beloved, we are even
here and now God's children; it is not yet disclosed (made clear) what we shall
be hereafter, but we know that when He comes and is manifested, we shall as
God's children resemble and be like Him, for we shall see Him just as He
really is" [AMP].
******
This resemblance to
Christ is not something we earn as a goal where we set out today and
tomorrow to make a $1000, do a job, or meet with a person. Being Christlike is
not something we can grasp with our hands. Yet we can become God’s children by
choice of will through faith. Even this, though, cannot become the goal of man as
a means to avoid eternal death. Becoming a follower of Christ must be a choice
of the soul (heart, mind, and spirit), a whisper of the being, to want
something more than this world can give.
We chart our days and say,
“Today I will clean, work, and cook. Tomorrow I will do the same. In
thirty years I will take my leisure and be taken care of by what I have saved
as surety for my life.” We cannot be sure of that for which we plan and grasp.
Things change in this fallen world on an hourly and daily basis. We cannot put
our stock and faith in the world’s ways. We cannot be so precise in this
living of the earthly, human life. Planning is commonsense, we say, to prepare
for the next or the inevitable. Even the rich man made plans, but we still saw
him in hell pleading with God to let Lazarus touch his lips with a cool
drop of water (Luke 16:19-31)? Our commonsense cannot be what drives us.
Commonsense is human, fallible, and changeable.
We can be certain of one
thing that is not commonsense. We can be sure of God - who He is and what His
plans are. We can throw away our commonsense and rely on that which makes no
sense and sounds impractical. We can be confident in God though we are
uncertain in our human sense (commonsense). Is it impractical to be certain in
our uncertainties? We do not have knowledge of what tomorrow will bring, but in
our humanity, we presume to plan our tomorrows. God is certainty. As soon as we
abandon ourselves to God, we have certainty. In our conviction about God, we
recognize who has ultimate control. Our uncertain future has an excited
anticipation of what God will do and where He will call us to join
Him.
People in our world and the
world at large misunderstand the abandon we have, this faith we can have
in an unseen God. They do not accept us and we should not be surprised by this.
Did they not reject the Son, too? Jesus said since people rejected Him
those who follow Him can expect to be rejected. Yet their gain as His
followers is to be called the children of God. We followers of Jesus become
heirs of salvation and the kingdom of heaven upon our step of faith
towards what looks to be uncertain into the arms of our certain God. God is not
an uncertainty; what God will do next is uncertain. This uncertainty is where
the breathless anticipation exists.
Will we abandon our plans
and our fallible race for the future and grasp with our hearts and souls the
certain God with a sure future even in the face of uncertain days? This is
relationship to the Father. This is the faith of a child of which
Jesus spoke in Matthew 18:3. If our certainty is just in ourselves, we become
self-righteous, smug, and sarcastic. By being in a right relationship with God,
we receive joy in uncertainty and certainty in the future.
Be
joyful because God will break in to humanity and the world and
be
excited about how He will do it.
Be
thankful God calls you His child and you will resemble Him.
You
can be absolutely certain He will come.
Remain
faithful.
