1 John 3:1-8 (CLICK HERE FOR BIBLE VERSES)
Hi GAMErs!
Today’s passage is 1 John 3:1-8.
1 John 3:1a
1 How great is the love the Father has lavished on us, that we should be called children of God! And that is what we are!
On verse 1a: When our sin had disqualified us from God’s presence and we had no right to have anything to do with God, God lavished His love on us when He sent His Son Jesus to die on the cross. It is through Jesus Christ that we can be called children of God. That’s the identity changing love of our God. Because of His love, we’re no longer the same. We go from sinners to saints, from excluded to included, from being orphaned to being part of His family. It’s not because of anything we have done but because of His grace.
1 John 3:1b (NIV)
1…The reason the world does not know us is that it did not know him.
On verse 1b: Through faith in Christ we are children of God, but of course the world does not know that or acknowledge that. As we looked at in 1 John 2:15-17, the world is a system of thinking, feeling and living that does not acknowledge Christ. It’s a system that pervades our society. Since the world does not acknowledge God, the world will not acknowledge you as a child of God. Instead the world will try to define you in other ways that are sometimes contradictory to what God’s Word says about you. For example, God says, “You are loved and you are valuable in My sight just as you are”, while the world says, “You will only be loved and valuable if you fulfill certain conditions.” You need to make a choice: am I going to the Word or the world define me?
1 John 3:2 (NIV)
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 he appears, we shall be like him, for we shall see him as he is.
On verse 2: “We shall be like him.” It’s a mystery what our resurrection bodies will look like when we see Jesus face to face, but we know this: in heaven we will look and feel more like Jesus than ever before. Remember that heaven is a place without any sin, which means all those sinful struggles we had on earth will no longer hamper us in heaven. Praise God!
“For we shall see him as he is”: There is something about seeing Jesus and being with Jesus that changes our countenance and our appearance. That’s why in heaven, where we see Jesus fully face to face and all the time, we will become like Jesus too. In the meantime, here on earth, let’s keep looking at Jesus and drawing close to Him, because the more you look at Jesus and the more you spend time with Him, the more like Jesus you will become.
1 John 3:3 (NIV)
3 Everyone who has this hope in him purifies himself, just as he is pure.
On verse 3: In other words, when we place our hope in Jesus, our sins are washed away and in God’s eyes we become as pure as Jesus Himself.
1 John 3:4 (NIV)
4 Everyone who sins breaks the law; in fact, sin is lawlessness.
On verse 4: To sin means to ignore what God’s law says, to live as if there is no law. That is why John says that sin is lawlessness.
1 John 3:5 (NIV)
5 But you know that he appeared so that he might take away our sins. And in him is no sin.
On verse 5: Jesus didn’t come just to teach us how to be good people. Far more than that, Jesus, the only pure human being in God’s eyes, came to take our sins away by dying on the cross. That is the first purpose John mentions for why Jesus came. The second one is in verse 8.
1 John 3:6-7 (NIV)
6 No one who lives in him keeps on sinning. No one who continues to sin has either seen him or known him.
7 Dear children, do not let anyone lead you astray. He who does what is right is righteous, just as he is righteous.
On verses 6-7: Don’t misunderstand these verses. Here John is not saying that if you sin after believing in Jesus that you have lost your salvation or that you never had salvation. Rather John is saying that a natural effect of trusting in Jesus is that you don’t keep on sinning like you used to, that now you are more conscious of a holy God, have power to overcome temptation and this results in a holier, more righteous and victorious life. As a Christian you will still have struggles, and you may still fall into temptation from time to time, but the general direction of your life is that you are growing more like Jesus in holiness and righteousness as time goes by. If I keep on sinning just as I did before, such that there is no difference between my life before I “met Jesus” and after, then I need to question whether I really did receive Jesus in the first place, since “No one who continues to sin has either seen him or known him” (v6).
1 John 3:8 (NIV)
8 He who does what is sinful is of the devil, because the devil has been sinning from the beginning. The reason the Son of God appeared was to destroy the devil’s work.
On verse 8: In verse 5 John says that Jesus came to take away our sins. Here in verse 8 John mentions another reason why Jesus came: to destroy the devil’s work. These two purposes are related, for if it is with the devil’s influence that we sin, in order to take away our sins, Jesus has to somehow deal with the devil who influences us to sin.
Father, thank You that the more we look at Jesus, the more we will look like Jesus. May my eyes be on Jesus today and may I become more like Him as I look at Him. In Jesus’ name, AMEN!
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