Inspiration of Love 09

"See what great love the Father has lavished on us, that we should be called children of God! And that is what we are! The reason the world does not know us is that it did not know him."

1 John 3:1

The context here is a larger argument against a specific heresy touted by some proto-Gnostics. Within that argument (2:28-3:8) there is the powerful statement above. Of which, we draw a few necessary revelations.

[1] We are Children of God because God Lovingly Bestowed the Right.

The Greek for "has lavished on us" or "has given us" is in the perfect tense. Many Christians are programmed to think only in the past tense, as if the cross, the resurrection, and Christ himself only had power in days long ago. However, the perfect tense indicates a completed action the results of which continues on from its origin. As in, the Father's great love is still being lavished upon us. As in, we are children of God today in the same sense as when the Father first bestowed the gift and right initially in Christ (cf John1:11-13). The Christian should experience an ever present impartation of God's love.

We must pray for greater clarity to understand great truths such as this. We must trust God to impart present blessings of love rather than reminiscing about the old days when God worked in people and/or dreaming of the experience of a future heaven only. It is good to reminisce of God's past workings. It is good to dream of God's future workings. It is better for your present condition to experience the power and love of God right now.

It was in the Apostle John's own present moment that he wrote: "Behold" or "See" that the Father's love is real and has made you his children. See it literally, the word indicates. There should be ample evidence of God's love in our present condition as children of God.

Christians struggle with the distractions of the world, falsehoods, and the opinions of others. Because of these distractions, we must hone our skills to see God's work literally in our lives.

There is an interesting point to consider is a view that God only works literally in the past or in the future. What happens to the NOW? Is it forgotten? Is it deleted? Is it meaningless? There are terrible interpretations of God's working that have excluded the only time that actually matters to anyone living - the present moment; i.e. - NOW. Dismissing God's work in the present is a form of atheism, which believes that God never existed or, if he did, is dead now. Dismissing God's work in the present is a form of deism, which believes God was a master watchmaker who upon completion of the project wound it up and now adheres to a noninterference policy; that is the absent God. However, despite the arrogant or ignorant interpretations of Christian Bible scholars, the Bible presents a present God, an ever-present God in fact; a literal God of the NOW.

This is how religion dies, not by its outer, physical structure decaying into ruin, but by it's inner, spiritual structure decaying like dead men's bones (Mt 23:27-28). This is what makes religion useless, ineffective traditional practices ritualized and heartless, and generations of deluded dreamers with an eye to heaven and no eye on the Living God who presently lavishes his love on his children.

Finally, please note the unfamiliarity the world should have with the children of God. They do not know us. They cannot know us. Why? Because they do not know God. Yet what do we constantly see in the activity of religion - a reaching out to conform with the ways of the world. Friends, if we become like the world, that proves we do not know God either. Do not be conformed to the world is the command (Rom 12:2). It is our familiarity, our conformity, with the world that blinds us to the Living God of the NOW. The more familiar we are with the world, the more blind we become. And so, many religious people and many church goers have only the past and the future work of God to consider. All the while they ponder these, the present and literal love of God is lost to their experience.

For those in Christ Jesus, there is a literal experience of the presence and love of God.