1 John : Day 6 : Children Of God

Day Six: Children of God

If you know that he is righteous, you may be sure that everyone who practices righteousness has been born of him.

See what kind of love the Father has given to us, that we should be called children of God; and so we are. The reason why the world does not know us is that it did not know him.  Beloved, we are God's children now, and what we will be has not yet appeared; but we know that when he appears we shall be like him, because we shall see him as he is. And everyone who thus hopes in him purifies himself as he is pure.

 Everyone who makes a practice of sinning also practices lawlessness; sin is lawlessness.  You know that he appeared in order to take away sins, and in him there is no sin.  No one who abides in him keeps on sinning; no one who keeps on sinning has either seen him or known him.  Little children, let no one deceive you. Whoever practices righteousness is righteous, as he is righteous.  Whoever makes a practice of sinning is of the devil, for the devil has been sinning from the beginning. The reason the Son of God appeared was to destroy the works of the devil.  No one born of God makes a practice of sinning, for God's seed abides in him; and he cannot keep on sinning, because he has been born of God.  By this it is evident who are the children of God, and who are the children of the devil: whoever does not practice righteousness is not of God, nor is the one who does not love his brother.

1 John 2:29-3:10 (ESV)

I am not a dad, but I have one.  And there are certain traits that passed down from him to me.  It can be fun or interesting to figure out what traits we get from our parents whether physical or in personality.  The same is true with God and His children.  If you are a Christian, you are a child of God.  And being a child of God, you will pick up traits that your Father has.  

The trait that signifies that we (Christians) are family, is righteousness.  Now this can be confusing since there are so many people and other religions that practice being “good.”  When others (non-Christians) practice “good” works, their righteousness is not of God, but from themselves.  The Gospel states that our righteousness is not our own, but His.  It is imputed or caused by Christ, our righteousness is a result of salvation not the cause of our salvation.  Every other person (again, non-Christian) is using their righteousness to somehow get ahead.  They are trying to salvation, earn a better spot in the next life, or trying to make a world a better place.  In fact, they are trying to become their own savior and trying to please their god (notice the lower-case g).  This will confuse many people, mostly because here in western culture all the religions and philosophies live together in relative peace and harmony and all teach to be nice to everyone.

We, as a family, know that we are being righteous because we have been radically transformed by Christ and we love our Father.  We are not trying to earn His love, because He already loved us.  That difference between us and them is not apparent to them at this time, but it will be when Jesus returns.

Just as we can be disobedient to our parents, we can be disobedient to our Heavenly Father.  While this is true, our new personality, the new trait imprinted on us does not make a practice of disobedience.  We have discussed earlier about being fruit inspectors and how to tell the difference between a Christian and a non-Christian, but this passage speaks about this differently.  In verse eight, John writes that, “The reason the Son of God appeared was to destroy the works of the devil.”  This tells me two things; one, the work has already been done for us (which we already talked about), and two, that we are free.  We are no longer in bondage to sin, we are free from it.  We now have a choice to sin or not to sin, we did not have that choice before.  If we are in Christ, we will only sin for so long before we repent.  If we love God, we would not want to hurt God.  “And do not grieve the Holy Spirit of God, by whom you were sealed for the day of redemption” (Ephesians 4:30 ESV).  Honor God and live as if you were free.