Today’s reading is 1 John 3.
Like father, like son. So they say. And John carries his statement about being children of God to the next level. As children of God, we are becoming like our Father. As another saying goes, we become what we worship. John says “what we will be” has not appeared or been revealed. That is, what we will be like as our maturing in and walking with Christ comes to its completion has not been made known to us or to John. It has not appeared to us, not been revealed to us, not been made manifest to us. However, we do know this. We will be like Him. Praise God!
Don’t miss this. John doesn’t emphasize WHERE we will be in the end, but WHO we will be in the end. In other words, the goal of our discipleship is not to get to heaven, but to be like God. I want to be like God in any way I can. Don’t you?
Though a couple of other options exist grammatically and contextually, when 1 John 3:2 says, “when he appears,” we naturally conclude John is saying, “When Jesus appears, we’ll be like Him.” That is, we’ll be like Jesus. Fine. But who is Jesus? He is the Son of the Father. He is the Son of God. He is God the Son. Sure, we can get bogged down in discussions of trinity, but the point is we’ll be like God. After all, if we’ve known the Son, we’ve known the Father (John 14:7). If we’ve seen the Son, we’ve seen the Father (John 14:9). The reason we know we’ll be like Him (whether Father or Son or both) is because we’ll see Him as He is. Right now, we walk by faith, not by sight. We can’t see God. We can’t see the spiritual realm at all. But a time is coming when our eyes will be transformed, along with our bodies into heavenly bodies which will see the heavenly realities (see 1 Corinthians 15:35-49). We will see the rulers, authorities, and cosmic powers in the heavenly places. We will see the angels. And, most importantly, we will see God. We will see Father, Son, Spirit.
Flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God in its fullness. But we are looking forward to something better than flesh and blood. We are looking forward to imperishable, immortal, spiritual bodies with which we will gaze upon the full glory of God. We are looking forward to being like God.
I, for one, can’t wait.
Praise the Lord!
Tomorrow’s reading is 1 John 3.
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PATHS:
Discuss Today’s Meditation with Your Family
How does 1 John 3 admonish you?
Read the Bible 