1 John 3:1-3 says,...

Today's verses are 1 John 3:1-3, which read,

v.1 - See how great a love the Father has bestowed on us, that we would be called children of God; and such we are.  For this reason the world does not know us, because it did not know Him.

John bursts out this proclamation.  "Wow, look at how much God our Father loves us!"

"great" - "this is out of this world" expression 
"bestowed" - to give of something to another 
"called" - to call aloud 
"know" - "to learn to know"

This is out of this world that God would give Jesus to us so He would call aloud that we are His.  The world does not learn to know this fact about us because they haven't learned to know that God sent His Son to save sinners.

v.2 - Beloved, now we are children of God, and it has not appeared as yet what we will be.  We know that when He appears, we will be like Him, because we will see Him just as He is.

This is a "heaven" verse.  John is pointing his readers to look at what will be.  Even though he cannot answer all the questions about what that will look like, the most important thing to know is that we will be like Him and we will see Him.  These are the greats of heaven.

We get glimpses of heaven in Scripture with the descriptions in Revelation and other passages but John's focus is on being like Jesus and seeing Him in all of His glory.  We can have a lot of questions about heaven but those are all secondary to being in the presence of our great Love.

v.3 - And everyone who has his hope fixed on Him purifies himself, just as He is pure.

Why do I live my life as I do?  Because my hope is "fixed" (upon, at) on Jesus so I make it an outgoing practice of purification (cleanse, ceremonially) of myself.  I put things into practice in my life that keep me on the "straight and narrow" as we used to say.  The footprints I follow of how to do this is Jesus' footprints because He is "pure" (holy).  I am a child of God because of Him and I live out my actual life following Him because there will be a day when I will see Him actually.

The genuine Christian has a laser focus vision of and on Jesus and that translates in a life that mirrors Jesus. 

"Lord, Your love is so great.  I am blown away by who You are and what You have done and are doing.  May I continue to know more about You so that I can live it out knowing that I will be doing and saying the right thing because You are right and true.  May I keep my eyes firmly fixed on You.  Amen."

Pastor Adam
A simple man serving a great God and the local pastor of Stillwater Community Chapel (stillwater-chapel.org). We are in our 38th year of full time ministry. God directed us to this local body of believers on the Western Range of the Rockies to grow with them in mission and mindedness of Christ.

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