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Hello my “Walking with Jesus” Friends in more than 75 countries around the world!
Today I invite you to join me as we wrestle with one of the most profound realities of our human journey. Let’s listen to one of Jesus’ best friends, the disciple John, as he shares some very powerful insights with us, which he gained in his years with Jesus. We’re in his little letter of 1 John found near the back of your Bible, and I’m in chapter 3 today.
“And now dear children, continue in Him (Jesus) so that when He appears we may be confident and unashamed before Him at His coming…How great is the love that God 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. Dear friends, now we are children of God, and what we will be has not yet been made known. But we know that when he appears we will be like Him,for we shall see Him as He is.” (1 John 2:28-3:2)
Do you hear some very powerful truths here? Who are your parents and grandparents? What reputation did you inherit from them? When you were a little child, what expectations did people have of you, based on who your family was?
John is not writing to children, but rather he’s calling the adults reading his letter to consider the miracle of God’s family. In John’s Gospel he wrote: “He (Jesus) was in the world, and though the world was made through Him, the world did not recognize Him. He came to that which was His own, but His own did not receive Him. Yet to all who received Him, to those who believed in His name, He gave them the right to become children of God – children not born of natural descent, nor of human decision or a husband’s will, but born of God.” (John 1:10-13)
John was born into a good family. His father was Mr. Zebedee and with his brother James, they had a father-sons fishing business on lake Galilee. John and James had left their fathers’ business for an extended time to ‘walk with Jesus’ and learn from Him. Evidently Jesus knew this family well, and loved them. So much so that as He was dying on the cross, Jesus asked John to take His mother Mary into their home and care for her. (John 19:26,27) It’s safe for us to assume Jesus had been in that home, around their table, in their fishing boats, many times.
John was overwhelmed with this idea of God’s family. Of what it would be like to grow up in God’s family with Almighty, Holy God as your Father and Jesus as your brother! As John came to understand the very complex miracle that we call ‘salvation’, three major miracles seem to have shaken John. Would you look at them with me?
First, that a sinner would experience a ‘new birth’ as they trusted in Jesus. John wrote about it in John 3 as he reported on a conversation between Jesus and Nicodemus, a Jewish scholar, Pharisee. John wrote: “Jesus declared, ‘I tell you the truth, no one can see the kingdom of God unless he is born again.
Amazed, Nicodemus asked, ‘how can a man be born when he is old? Surely he cannot enter a second time into his mother’s womb to be born!?’
Jesus answered, ‘I tell you the truth, no one can enter the kingdom of God unless he is born of water and the Spirit. Flesh gives birth to flesh, but the Spirit gives birth to spirit. You should not be surprised at My saying, ‘you must be born again.’ (John 3:3-7)
The appropriate word for this miracle is “regeneration”. It means a living person who has obviously already been born, who has come to life once, now experiences birth a second time, a re-birth miracle, which is just as genuine as the first. Jesus explained that in normal human birth, a miraculous conception develops into a fetus which is nurtured for 9 months in the mother’s womb, alive, vibrant, growing moment by moment. According to Psalm 139 it is a miraculous, developmental work of God. Few aspects of the human journey are more fascinating than what God does during pregnancy in both the mother and child.
But then comes the miracle of birth… oh my! I saw it only once, as our daughter April was born. I was the first husband allowed in the delivery room in that particular hospital and of course it’s a miracle memory forever etched in my mind and heart. So I fully appreciate Nicodemus’ question of Jesus. I would have asked the same. It’s one thing to see a tiny baby of about 8 lbs come through the birth canal, but it’s ludicrous to imagine a 180lb man somehow working his way back in through that birth canal, to be born a second time! (I wonder what images just came into your mind as I said that?)
But Jesus explained this second birth is not physical, as the first one was, it is a spiritual new birth, but it is just as real, just as miraculous. God does them both. The human being simply experiences it…that is vital to understand. You didn’t birth yourself the first time physically, and you can’t birth yourself spiritually. God births in me a new spiritual nature, since I was born with a sinful, human nature. And this new spiritual nature is designed to live in constant relationship with God.
My human body created and birthed by God will eventually die and decay here. But my new spiritual nature, created and birthed by God, is immortal and will live forever. After my body in which my spiritual nature lives dies, my spirit goes to live with God in heaven! But all the while this new spirit lives in my body, I am a totally different person from who I was before my second birth! Do you understand that my friends? John wants us to be sure we get this. No second birth, then no salvation, no heaven after death!
The second truth John wants us to understand is ADOPTION. When we trust Jesus to be our Savior, and God births a new spiritual nature is us, He also ADOPTS us into His family. God becomes our heavenly Father, and we become adopted children of God. Do you see John explaining that in John 1. That’s why John addresses the Christians as ‘dear children’ and calls us to be amazed that “…the Father has lavished His love on us, that we should be called children of God! And that is what we are!” (1John 3:1)
It’s true isn’t it… you will ALWAYS be the child of your parents, even long after they are dead and gone, and when you are old and gray, you are still considered to be the child of two adults, your biological parents. It’s possible you never met them. It’s possible you only know your adoptive parents, but your creation involved two human beings, a woman and a man, and God. We may consider that God is thrice the father of a Christian person. God first created them physically and then God regenerated them, ‘born-again’ when they trusted in Jesus for their salvation, and then God the Father adopted them as His son or daughter! That simply overwhelmed John…does it overwhelm you? Can you consider yourself three times a child of God?
Finally, do you see in 1 John 2:28 & 3:2 John is talking about Jesus returning here to earth, and that when He appears we will know Him, and we’ll become like Him? WOW! What does it mean? It means, my friends, that when Jesus was raised from the dead by God the Father, His beaten, crucified, shredded body was miraculously healed, restored and changed into a glorified, heavenly body. Paul writes a great deal about this in 1 Corinthians 15 because he and John both want us to understand that Jesus is coming back to earth again someday. But there’s more. . .
When Jesus ascended from the Mount of Olives east of Jerusalem, in full view of many of His friends, two angels appeared and said “This same Jesus who has been taken from you into heaven will come back in the same way you have seen Him go into heaven.” (Acts 1:11) Paul writes about it in 1 Thessalonians 4:13-18. Jesus,the resurrected Jesus, is coming back here, in the very same resurrected body which elevated into the sky that day about 2000 years ago. And John and Paul want us to know that when it happens, ALL living human beings, everywhere around the world WHO have experienced the ‘born again’ miracle of God will at the moment of Jesus’ return experience another miracle. Their human bodies will suddenly be transformed into the same type of heavenly body which resurrected Jesus had!
And also, all those ‘born again’ people who had died, whatever is left of their dead bodies will be miraculously resurrected and transformed into a heavenly body, and reunited with their spirit which has been in heaven since the day they died. Then all of us… resurrected Jesus, the alive Christians who suddenly received heavenly bodies, and the dead who resurrected with heavenly bodies…all of us will be with the LORD in the air, Paul says in 1 Thessalonians 4! Now that my friends will be a global miraculous event unlike anything anyone has ever seen in all of human history!
Now I’d like to suggest we just let that soak into our hearts and minds all day today! I urge you to read 1 Corinthians 15 and 1 Thessalonians 4:13-15 and simply allow the Holy Spirit of God to overwhelm you with this amazing God promise. And claim it as your certain future, IF you are confident you are a ‘born again’ follower of Jesus! And if you’re not confident about this, I urge you to talk with Jesus right now! If I can be of help to you write me in the response tab of this “Walking with Jesus’ page.
Bible images provided with attribution to www.LumoProject.com.
Click to read today’s chapter: 1 Corinthians 15; 1 Thessalonians 4:13-15. (At the top you can choose a different translation.)
Have a comment or question about today’s chapter? I’m ready to hear from you, contact me here.
Pastor Doug Anderson 262.441.8785
“Let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us, with our eyes fixed on Jesus…” (Heb. 12:1,2)
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