I John 3:1
"Behold, what manner of love the Father hath bestowed upon us, that we (as receptive believers) should be called the sons of God: (or the children of God.) therefore the world knoweth us not, because it knew him not."
Now that’s plain enough isn’t it? My goodness, after three years amongst His own people, what was the statement of the majority? "Crucify Him! Kill Him!" They didn’t know Him. Well, that’s the world’s attitude toward us, whether you know it or not. All right, and so it knows us not because it "knew him not." Now here it comes in verse 2.
I John 3:2-3
"Beloved, now we are the sons (or the first born ones) of God, and it doth not yet appear what we shall be: but we know (beyond a shadow of a doubt) that when he shall appear, we shall be like him; for we shall see him as he is. And every man (that’s a generic term meaning also women, boys and girls who are believers) that hath this hope in him purifieth himself, even as he (the Lord, Christ) is pure."
Our receptivity of His activity is what purges or purifies us through Graces activity. We can do noting to cause purification, though with the Holy Spirits aid in our study time He'll wash us by the Living Word. But here again its His activity of cleansing not a labor of our own. Now here comes a religious response to this. What does that tell us? I’ll bet you one thing for sure, if you knew beyond a shadow of a doubt that by 12 o’clock tomorrow the Lord would have come for us in the departure, you’d act a lot differently for this next 24 hours. Wouldn’t we? I mean every one of us! We would make sure that we hadn’t had any evil thoughts cob-webbing our minds. We would make sure that we are spiritually, as well as physically and materially, ready for that trumpet call that’s going to come sometime between now and noon tomorrow. I know we would. There isn’t a person a live that wouldn’t take special note to be ready when that moment comes. Matters not our religious conviction if we knew that He was ready to come we'd do everything our religion said was necessary to prepare for Him. Not knowing that the hindrance to us is our religion as the English word “religion” is derived from the Latin word religare which means “to bind up.” Religion is inevitably a bondage to rules and regulations and rituals of devotion, but deeper still it is a spiritual bondage to subservience in the expression of the character and activity of Satan.
We're to be ready all the time, see? But we’re human. We get lax and the first thing you know weeks have gone by and we haven’t really thought about the Lord’s coming. But hey, it’s got to be on our mind constantly, especially as we see as Paul says in Hebrews, ‘The day appearing.’ Now here's the secret we can be in the ready all the time as the five virgins are in the parable of the ten. We can live a Life with our cures always full of oil and in the ready. How you ask? By way of death as shown before, to Live in the power of an Endless Life just as the son of man did. For this is the way of Christ and the way in which He enables us to Live in His resurrection Life as lights and salt in the world of dead men walking because they're separated from God through many means of deception or dis-ease. All right, now then the other one that I just thought of while I was reading this one of course is in Philippians. So let’s go back to Philippians chapter 3, starting at verses 20 and 21.
Philippians 3:20-21
"For our conversation (or if you have a margin, it’s citizenship, the constitution of a commonwealth, form of government and the laws by which it is administered, more simply our way of life we're to reflect God's character and nature) is in heaven; from whence also we look for the Saviour, the Lord Jesus Christ: Who shall change our vile (this corrupt or corruption) body, that it (this body) may be fashioned like unto his glorious body, (the resurrected body, the seed incorruptible) according to the working whereby he is able even to subdue (submit ones self to Him) all things unto himself."
In other words, what are we to be constantly aware of? That maybe in the next hour, we’re out of this old body of flesh and we’re in the new and we’re in Glory! That’s our blessed hope and I can’t stress it enough that all through the early days of Christendom it was that imminent return of Christ that they were looking for. And like I’ve said over and over, Paul wrote of it as though He was coming in his lifetime, until just before he was martyred. He finally speaks of the fact that he’s going to go through physical death, but I don’t think Paul ever expected to. He thought the Lord was going to return before he would die a physical death. All right back to Hebrews chapter 10. And so:
Hebrews 10:25
"Not forsaking the assembling of ourselves together (with like-minded receptive believers, this can be seen or heard back in genesis where the son's of Jacob are all in agreement as to the course of action to be taken) as the manner of some is; but exhorting one another: and so much the more, as ye see the day approaching."
Verse 26 and here again is a verse that arouses so many questions and really it’s quite simple.
Hebrews 10:26-27
"For if we sin wilfully after that we have received the knowledge of the truth, there remaineth no more sacrifice for sins, But a certain fearful looking for of judgment and fiery indignation, which shall devour the adversaries."
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