Memory Verse Day 7: A counter-cultural goal
(Juan 1:12 NBLH)
"But to all who did receive him, who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God"
(Juan 1:12 ESV)
Yesterday we started with verse 11. Now we’re stuck once more in the middle of a sentence, which will finish tomorrow!
When you think about it, this verse is so counter-cultural. The necessity to receive Jesus – and perhaps even more amazing than that is the goal. Those who believed were given the right to become children of God.
How many people do you know who are wishing they could be children of God? They wish they were smarter, healthier, stronger. They wish they were more moral, more loving. They wish they had money or power. Really, they wish they could be gods.
How crazy to want to be simply a child of God.
And yet, if there truly is a God (and there is), Someone totally different from His Creation, Someone Holy, Someone all-powerful and all-knowing – someone who is loving and just and beautiful – what an honour it would be to be His child.
It’s not just an honour – it’s beyond anything we could ever ask for.
When God came to this broken, sinful world, what did we have the right to expect? Judgement, of course. Justice.
But to those who believed in His Name – who received Him – He instead gave the right to become children of God.
It’s counter-cultural all right. But the children of God are not just apart from the world – they overcome the world.
For everyone who has been born of God overcomes the world. And this is the victory that has overcome the world–our faith. Who is it that overcomes the world except the one who believes that Jesus is the Son of God?
(1John 5:4-5)