February 06, 2017

Becoming - Part 2

Devotion for the Week...

Last week I started this two part series on Becoming and you can read part 1 here. Today I want to tackle part 2.

The verse I am using for this series is 1 John 3:2, which says, "Dear friends, now we are children of God, and what we will be has not yet been made known. But we know that when Christ appears, we shall be like him, for we shall see him as he is."

Last week we looked at what we are becoming in this lifetime and this week I want to look at what we will become in eternity. John tells us "that when Christ appears, we shall be like him, for we shall see him as he is." But he also says that "what we will be has not yet been made known." 

The part I find most interesting is we shall see him as he is. It makes me think of 1 Corinthians 13:12: "For now we see only a reflection as in a mirror; then we shall see face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I am fully known."

The Bible tells us about Jesus. We see in it His compassion, His love for people, His gentleness, His relationship with the Father and His utter disregard for religious traditions that kept people from having a relationship with God. We know that we are to be like Jesus and so we try to be compassionate, loving, gentle, etc. With the Holy Spirit to help us and guide us, we can certainly be much more compassionate and loving than we could be on our own, but I believe we still fall far short of the truth of what Jesus is.

Jesus is perfect compassion. He is perfect love to all people. He is one with the Father. But what we read in the Bible is only an approximation of what Jesus is.What we read in the Bible is the best God could do to explain Jesus in a way that we humans would understand. Everything about this world is tainted by sin. Everything is tainted to some degree by anger, selfishness, greed, fear, impatience and more. Even our happiest relationships have their rocky moments where someone says something in anger now and then.

Because of the taint of sin, we can't understand perfection, no matter how hard we try. And because we can't understand perfection, we can't really understand Jesus as He is. But one day we will! One day, when we are in eternity with Him, we will no longer be surrounded by the taint of sin. Then we will understand His perfect love and perfect compassion and his unity with the Father.

And not only will we understand it, but we will be like Him, meaning we will have that perfection ourselves. Can you imagine living no longer prone to selfishness or impatience? No longer dealing with anger or fear? I know...I can't really either! It seem so far out of the realm of possibility, but only because we've never before lived in a world where sin doesn't exist. But that will be our beautiful reality for all of eternity.
Weekly devotions on Christian Living | DevotedQuilter.blogspot.com
Someday, "when Christ appears, we shall be like him, for we shall see him as he is." What a beautiful promise that is!

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