The Kind of Love That Renames You

See how great a love the Father has given to us, that we should be called children of God! For this cause the world doesn’t know us, because it didn’t know him. (1 John 3:1, WEB)

It is one thing to believe God will tolerate you. It is another thing entirely to believe he wanted you in his family. Most men fighting this struggle can accept the first and cannot begin to imagine the second. We assume that even if God forgives, he does so with a sigh, keeping us at arm's length, letting us stay in the house but never quite treating us as his own.

John will not let that stand. He writes, See what kind of love the Father has given to us, that we should be called children of God; and so we are. He is almost shaking us by the shoulders, telling us to look, to really look at what has happened. The word for love here means a love that comes from somewhere other than our worthiness. God did not adopt you because you were a promising candidate. He did it because that is the kind of Father he is, and having done it, he calls you his own child and means it.

And so we are, John adds, as if closing the door on our arguments. He knows we will try to talk our way out of it, to insist that surely he does not mean men like us. The line stands there anyway, refusing to be softened. You may spend the day feeling like an outsider trying to sneak back in, watching the family from the edge of the yard, but the record in heaven says son, and the record does not change with your mood or your week.

That naming is not fragile. It was given by a love strong enough to reach you where you were, and a love like that does not take back the name when you stumble. When you pray tonight, try beginning with Father, and let yourself mean it, even if your voice is unsteady, even if the word feels too large for your mouth right now.