God has made it possible for anyone in the whole world to know and experience the benefit of His love. Anyone who responds to God and believes in the Lord Jesus Christ is made, recognized, and authorized as a child of God. When that happens, we are included in the blessings and benefits of God’s amazing love.
1 John 3:1 NKJV Behold what manner of love the Father has bestowed on us, that we should be called children of God! Therefore the world does not know us, because it did not know Him.
There is a major distinction between God’s children and the people of the world. God’s children know their heavenly Father and are brought under the umbrella of His love and care. The world denies and rejects God and loses the benefit and blessing that God has made possible. Accepting, knowing or experiencing the love of God is the difference in God’s children and the people of the world.
John 3:16 NKJV For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life.
Pay attention to this word. God loved the whole world, but everyone does not benefit from that love. It is a tragedy that God’s love is large enough for the whole world, but many reject Him and lose the benefit and blessing of His love. God’s children know His love, while the people of the world do not know or experience it. Ephesians discusses the width, length, depth and height of the blessing that is included in this.
Ephesians 3:17-19 NKJV That Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith; that you, being rooted and grounded in love, may be able to comprehend with all the saints what is the width and length and depth and height—to know the love of Christ which passes knowledge; that you may be filled with all the fullness of God.
How has God shown us His love?
God has demonstrated His love through His Son. Through the gift of His Son, God has made us His children and has revealed and demonstrated His love to us as His children. This is so extremely large that it is beyond our ability to know. The depth of His love for us is revealed in what God has done and is prepared to do in us and for us. God’s love encompasses every good and perfect gift that comes down from heaven.
1 John 3:2-3 NLT Dear friends, we are already God’s children, but he has not yet shown us what we will be like when Christ appears. But we do know that we will be like Him, for we will see Him as He really is. And all who have this eager expectation will keep themselves pure, just as he is pure.
Verse 2 shows the extent of God’s love on two levels. God has made us His children and has included us in the benefits of being His children.
Look at this first expression of God’s love for us.
John 1:12 NKJV But as many as received Him, to them He gave the right to become children of God, to those who believe in His name…
Romans 8:15 NKJV For you did not receive the spirit of bondage again to fear, but you received the Spirit of adoption by whom we cry out, “Abba, Father.”
Do you understand the depth of what it means to be made a child of God? The spirit of bondage again to fear is a heritage of the people of the world. You have received the Spirit of adoption and now you recognize and know God as your dear Father.
This second level of expression of God’s love involves the current blessings and benefits in being made His children.
James 1:17 NKJV Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, and comes down from the Father of lights, with whom there is no variation or shadow of turning.
It is natural for God to show His love to His children. God’s extensive blessings and benefits cover every grace and mercy that is extended toward us through God’s love. These blessings and benefits are not only provided, they are the known goodness and faithfulness of God. They keep coming down to us from the Father. Every day He loads us down with His goodness and faithful blessing. The depth of His blessings and benefits are so extensive they go beyond what we shall ever receive in this life.
God’s love is the force behind everything that He does.
Romans 5:8–10 NKJV But God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us. Much more then, having now been justified by His blood, we shall be saved from wrath through Him. For if when we were enemies we were reconciled to God through the death of His Son, much more, having been reconciled, we shall be saved by His life.
Hold on to this thought — God’s children are different from the people of the world.
- While we were rebelling and opposing Him, God loved us.
- While we were sinners and enemies of God, He loved us.
- While we were standing against God, He loved us.
If someone loves you and you do not receive that love, then their love never touches you.
We cannot know the depth of God’s love without entering into a loving relationship with Him. Many people have isolated themselves from God’s love and care. Their only help comes from other people or from themselves. Since they have rejected God’s love and help, they face suffering, sorrow, and death all alone. They do not have the help of God’s supernatural power and presence. They have no hope beyond this life and do not know what the future holds.
God has demonstrated His love toward us by giving His Son to die on a cross for our sins.
Love motivated Jesus to take our sins upon Himself, pay the penalty for our sins, and remove them from us. Because the price has been paid to free us from our sins, God is able to accept us into His family. The blood of Jesus Christ has made us acceptable to the Father.
The difference in those who have been made God’s children and the world is we know and experience God’s love.
Romans 5:8, God demonstrates His own love toward us… and requires corresponding love from His children.
1 John 4:19 NKJV We love Him because He first loved us.
God expects His children to be people of love.
- Initially, our love is toward God, “We love Him because He first loved us.”
- Ultimately and specifically, “We love because He first loved us.”
When we are touched and changed by the love of God, we become a repository and dispensary of His love.
Since His love is deposited in and upon us in trust, we will naturally share His love.
Two amazing transformations take place in those who respond, experience and know the Father’s love.
1 John 3:1 NKJV Behold what manner of love the Father has bestowed on us, that we should be called children of God! Therefore the world does not know us, because it did not know Him.
Right now, the depth of the Father’s love has been bestowed upon us and we have been adopted into His family and have been made His children.
A second and greater transformation is coming for every child of God.
1 John 3:2 NKJV Beloved, now we are children of God; and it has not yet been revealed what we shall be, but we know that when He is revealed, we shall be like Him, for we shall see Him as He is.
We are not going to become God’s children at the rapture of the church, we are already God’s children. If you have trusted in Jesus Christ and given your life to Him, you are a child of God.
We know what we are now, but “it has not yet been revealed what we shall be…when He is revealed.”
We know that we are children of God. It’s a grand and glorious feeling, just to be a child of God. Every day you can say, “I am my Father’s child.”
We do not know what we shall be like when Christ returns.
God has not fully disclosed what we will be like when Christ appears. The only thing we know about the glory that awaits is we will be like Christ when we see Him as He really is. The extent of the change that will occur can only be known now by beholding Christ in His glory. John said, “We beheld His glory, the glory of the only begotten of the Father.”
We have seen the glory of the resurrected Christ. We know that we shall be like Him for we are going to be changed into the image of Christ.
We shall be like HIM.
What does it mean, “We shall be like Him?”
God has not explained what this means. Our heart and mind cannot conceive the glory and joy that awaits us. Our earthly body is too limited to comprehend that change that is going to take place. We cannot understand a body like that. God did not explain what it means to be like Jesus, but He promised that on that glorious resurrection morning we shall be changed.
“When He shall appear we shall be like Him; for we shall see Him as He is.”
- We shall see God face to face.
- We shall be like Him, when we shall see Him as He is.
- We will be made just like Christ.
- We will be changed to His very image.
What does it mean “we shall be made like Him”?
Ephesians 1:4 says, God has chosen us in Christ to “be holy and without blame before Him”—eternally. Ephesians 1:5 God the Father “decided in advance to adopt us into His own family by bringing us to Himself through Jesus Christ”. 1 Corinthians 15:49 says, We “have borne the image of the earthly, we shall also bear the image of the heavenly.”
We are to be like Christ.
Philippians 3:20–21 NKJV For our citizenship is in heaven, from which we also eagerly wait for the Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ, Who will transform our lowly body that it may be conformed to His glorious body, according to the working by which He is able even to subdue all things to Himself.
We know one thing for certain when He is revealed, we shall be like Him, for we shall see Him as He is.
Our earthly bodies will undergo a radical change. These perishable bodies will be raised imperishable. These weak bodies will be raised in power. (1 Corinthians 15:42-44)
We shall be like Him.
Our lowly body will be transformed so that it may be conformed to His glorious body, a body of glory. Glorious means —splendid, having remarkable appearance, splendor, glory, strikingly beautiful. God is going to conform us to His own glorious body, having majesty and grace.
1 John 3:3 NKJV And everyone who has this hope in Him purifies himself, just as He is pure.
God wants to make you pure, holy, and righteous. He has saved us so He can redeem us and make us His own. He is not finished with you when He makes you His child, God wants to transform you into the image of Christ.He has given us the hope of being eternally transformed.
We have this promise and hope.
