Children Awaiting: Day 8
“And now, little children, abide in him, so that when he appears we may have confidence and not shrink from him in shame at his coming. 29If you know that he is righteous, you may be sure that everyone who practices righteousness has been born of him. 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. 2Beloved, 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. 3And everyone who thus hopes in him purifies himself as he is pure.” - 1st John 2:28-3:3 (ESV)
Again John gives the call to abide in the Father, which I can only imagine is a call back to Jesus’ teaching in John 15. Yet here we see another unique aspect to abiding; confidence. When we abide in the Father and his word abides in us we can have confidence. What does this confidence look like? We can stand boldly before the Father at his coming. We can stand strong and not try and hide ourselves in shame. What does this kind of relationship look like with the Father? What does it look like to have full confidence before God? Not hiding in shame but walking hand in hand as children of God? The best example we have is the relationship Adam and Eve had with God in the garden. The full transparency and daily walks with God. Adam communed with God daily without barriers, without hesitation, without reluctance. Adam was never concerned with how he appeared before God, he just walked with God.
What does it look like to shrink in shame at God’s coming? Again we evaluate Adam and Eve at the garden. “Then the eyes of both were opened, and they knew that they were naked. And they sewed fig leaves together and made themselves loincloths. 8And they heard the sound of the Lord God walking in the garden in the cool of the day, and the man and his wife hid themselves from the presence of the Lord God among the trees of the garden. 9But the Lord God called to the man and said to him, “Where are you?” 10And he said, “I heard the sound of you in the garden, and I was afraid, because I was naked, and I hid myself.” - Genesis 3:7-10
Adam and Eve walked with God in complete transparency, yet when sin entered the picture it fractured everything that was. God, being omniscient, already knew what took place. Yet he still chose to walk in the garden looking for Adam and Eve. Now God knows and sees all, it wasn’t actually “looking” for Adam and Even, he already knew where they were and what happened, God was walking in the garden as he always did. Adam and Even shrunk back in shame, as the book of Genesis actually points out “the man and his wife hid themselves from the presence of the Lord God.” That is what shrinking back in shame looks like. When the presence of God is before us, we either can stand before him in confidence, or hid from his presence in shame. Adam and Eve were always naked, yet when sin entered the world, shame followed. They saw themselves and felt shameful and hid from God. Shame will always lead us to hide from the presence of God instead of embrace the presence of God in our lives.
If we know that God is righteous, the creator of righteousness, then we can know that when we too walk in the righteousness he has called us to we can be assured that we are walking with him as his children. The world won’t understand why we are the way we are, but the world doesn’t know God. There is no way to expect acceptance from a world that doesn’t know its own creator. Beyond that, it has rejected its creator. Rejected the Lord. Through the work of Christ on the cross we have been forgiven and redeemed. When we place our full faith and devotion, repenting from our sins, hoping in His goodness, we walk as children of God. We can walk with confidence as children awaiting his return.
Takeaway: When we abide in the Father and his word abides in us, we can walk with confidence free from shame.
