1 John 3:2 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.
Ask a five year old what he wants to be when he grows up and you’ll soon learn who his hero is. “I want to be a fire-man” or “I want to be a doctor” or “I want to be Batman” Sometimes you may even get “I want to do ____ because that’s what my daddy does.” As we saw yesterday, the analogy of the Christian’s relationship with God as a parent child relationship is useful to understand God’s love for us. Continuing this analogy, 1st John 3:2 turns toward our response to God. John repeats the idea that we are God’s children and emphasises that we are Now children of God. What do children do? Besides causing their parents to love them through tears and tantrums, they grow up. We expect children to grow and learn. This verse has the future of the children of God in mind, starting with where we are now and looking forward to a future hope. And so what are we looking forward to? What are we growing towards?
The text tells us that we are looking forward to Christ coming again, as it says the text : ‘when He appears.’ What exactly that will look like we do not fully know, but we do know that we will be like Christ. As we will see more clearly in the weeks to come, this is a call to see who Christ is and grow up following His example. As children of God, we are to learn and grow according to the teaching and example of Christ. You may have heard of this referred to as Christian maturity. John says here that as children of God, we are to grow up with the goal of becoming like Christ. Christmas is perhaps the best time to start thinking about what this means. As we celebrate the coming of Christ, we should be reflecting not only on the great gift He gives us but also on how we are using that gift. Christ came to give us life, perfect life with God. Those who believe in Jesus Christ are freely adopted into His family. Following on yesterday’s questions about what love is and how that changes us, I have another couple of question for us to think about. What do you want to be when you grow up? How are you pursuing your goals for life? And to keep it Christmassy, what does the story of Christ coming to earth teach us about how we are to live?
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