1 John 3

Read 1 John 3 here first: https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=1+John+3&version=NIV

The first verse tells us love makes us children of God. The longer I’ve been around families in all their different types the more I’ve realized- love is what makes a family. If it’s not there you’re not much of a family- if it is practically any relationship can become brother or sister. And how much more so is that true of Jesus sacrificial love for us? He makes us the family of God where we’re equals we’re all brothers and sisters. There’s no grandparents and grandchildren in Christ- but we’re all family on the same level of brothers and sisters. Christ’s love changes the hierarchy of age and status.

Then it goes into this simple fact: seeing Jesus, as He truly is, changes us. It talks about seeing Him after He appears to us in the final day. But also that seeing Jesus now changes us. When we realize he’s here working through our lives it changes us. You don’t flip off people in traffic if you realize Jesus is represented by your actions and that He’s watching. You watch your words, you think about your actions, when you think the world is just you, it’s pretty easy to justify any action you take.

Because we’ve seen Jesus and He’s made us family by dying for us and defeating the devil, our attitudes and hearts towards sin and towards our fellow citizens change. We are to love instead of hate. We are to change our ways, as Jesus came to take sin away. Yes we still sin, but the Spirit will make us different. Perhaps in ways that are hard for us to see or know- yet don’t we want Christ to change us? Though I’m not certain how true this is in my own life, and I even feel guilt about the amount of growth happening- that growth doesn’t save us, but reading this passage motivates me to think better about those people in my life that I find easy to hate, those sins I want to keep in the dark and not deal with.

I find peace and hope in these words-“If our hearts condemn us, we know that God is greater than our hearts, and he knows everything.” So when we feel guilt reading this- we know that God is greater than our hearts that condemn and Christ’s sacrifice is bigger than our sin. Amen!