TUESDAY 28th
1 John 3:1
‘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.’
One of the great discoveries in human medicine is the discovery of our DNA, which can identify so much about who we are as individuals, our uniqueness, that is what makes me who or what I am as a person, but it can also identify those who we are in some way connected to. You can get a DNA test to help to find lost family or to find out where your ancestors may have come from.
In the family of God there is a unique DNA for every child of his which has come about through the redemptive work of Calvary, our blood line is the shed blood of Jesus, and the mystery or the wonder of it is that this amazing family is summed up in the book of Revelation as having come from ‘every tribe and language and people and nation’ (Revelation 5:9). We are made up of many people groups, many colours, many cultures, male and female, from the rich and the poor, from the north, south, east and west and yet we are all joined together as one big family, the family of God! As the children of God, we are brothers and sisters together.
We started in this third chapter by considering the love that God has bestowed upon us, this love that was demonstrated at Calvary, is poured into our hearts by the Holy Spirit and it is outworked in our love firstly toward God as our heavenly Father, and to his Son as our Saviour but, it needs also to be outworked among one another within his family. It takes us almost full circle to what John has said earlier in this epistle that we should love one another. It comes up again later in this same chapter in verse 11 ‘For this is the message that you have heard from the beginning, that we should love one another.’ The same love bestowed upon us must be the love that binds us together.
Blest be the tie that binds,
Our hearts in Christian love,
The fellowship of kindred minds,
Is like to that above.