The Gift Giver
See how great a love the Father has bestowed upon us, that we should be called children of God; and such we are. 1 John 3:1 NASB
Bestowed – In the New Testament this Greek word (dedoken) belongs to the same cognate group as the word for gift. It could be translated as giving, granting, presenting or bestowing. It is particularly important because it indicates that the ultimate gift-giver is God Himself and the ultimate gift given is peace with God through His son.
In this verse, John expresses how unimaginably wonderful it is to know that God the Father loved us so much that He chose to favor us by calling us His children. Adoption, especially adoption of those who were once enemies, is an amazing display of the divine desire for reconciliation. We are the children of God because He says we are, not because we did anything to deserve being His children but simply because we were favored with His love gift to us. For everyone seeking recovery from a history of disobedience, this proclamation of God’s love toward us tells us something very important about who we are. It tells us that we matter to God. In fact, God places such high a value on us that He gave us the best gift He could—the gift that would bring us back to Him. When we are trapped in destructive lives, we are often faced with the despair of self-worthlessness. But God says “No!” to this inner degradation. God says that we are worthy of His love.
I am sure you’ve seen lots of self-help books claiming to help you create a “new” you, but the only book that can create a completely new you is the one God wrote. It is the only book that lets God rewrite your life. And that’s what we need. When we try to make a new person of ourselves, we must always build on the existing foundation. We are only able to remodel the mess we’ve made. But God is able to do reconstruction. He is able to create a foundation and build from there. Addicts don’t need self-help. It was our “self” that was causing the problems. We needed God to give us a new “self,” an identity that does more than point us in another direction. We need a way to make something good from the mess we constructed. We need God to remake the human being in us. This does not mean erasing what we have done. What we have done is now a part of who we are. Our actions have been incorporated into our way of being in the world, our default patterns of behavior, our perception of right and wrong. To erase them is to die, and God isn’t interested in our literal death as a way toward renewal. But He is interested in killing us softly, in replacing all that mess with hope in a different result. He is the Master of makeover, not makeup. There is no covering up the past. There is only using it to achieve a different objective.
Of course, there is effort involved in this reconstruction, but from the human side of the equation, our effort is to allow God to set the foundation and then follow His instructions for building life on that foundation. God knocks down the building we constructed. It wasn’t useful to Him or us. But just like a tel in Israel, the reconstruction uses the material from the previous demolition. God rebuilds with the broken bricks. We cannot do that, but we can put aside all our twisted plans and build straight walls of obedience. The great gift is His declaration that we can be trusted to do what He asks. The great gift is His declaration that we belong to Him. The great gift is “peace on earth and good will toward men.” He has provided for our reconciliation. The great gift isn’t forgiveness. It is fellowship. Forgiveness is simply the by-product of God’s determination to include us in His family.
Topical Index: gift, dedoken, forgiveness, family, 1 John 3:1
Create in me a clean heart O God and renew a right spirit in me. I how I love Our Fellowship.
It’s You and Me against the world.
And how bless we are to be part of his ROYAL FAMILY, his love for us is so amazing how awesome is our YAH!
I am currently studying how trauma affects us. Specifically, PTSD. Forgiveness looms large in the ability to move on, but it is hard when one, or even all, of the 3 major factors that are involved in developing PTSD (perceived rejection of or by self, personal relationships and/or community) has to do with the perception that either self, intimate relationships or community (society at large, too) has rejected or blamed the victim of trauma, thus causing shame, anger, etc. This calls for forgiveness of those who are ostensibly causing the suffering, largely by the real or perceived rejection of the sufferer. This is hard! The flesh reaction to those who reject me is to reject back. Golden Rule override required.
The way I read that awesome last sentence, though (“Forgiveness is simply the byproduct of God’s determination to include us in His family.”), this involves drawing a circle that includes those who have excluded me; forgiveness merely being a means to that end. Instead of sitting there reacting to the exclusion of others, I have to find a way to want them back: not only want them back, but put them back! This is doubly confounded by the fact that even the Golden Rule recognizes a basic inclusion of self: it calls for us to want for others what we want for ourselves. This gets difficult when one of the important things a victim of trauma or abuse loses is that proper sense of self; even going so far as to completely reject (through shame) that self. How can I want for another what I have lost the ability to want for myself? Details! We need some more details, here…
Please forgive me and I am really asking for help, here. I am thinking about Yeshua, Who “Despised the shame (of exclusion from community) that was set before Him”, and wondering if forgiveness, as modeled by Him, is a proactive way to include myself back into the community that shut me out? We shut Him out, and He included us back in by that forgiveness. This means I don’t have to wait for the community or ask permission: I just need to forgive them for excommunicating me! Shame comes from exclusion. Yeshua suffered that shame, and He was blameless. Victims of the sin of others likewise can suffer the shame (coming from the fracture of relationship) of their perpetrators. Forgiveness is then the best way to overcome that shame, as per our model. Am I going in the right direction? We are looking for real answers, here. Thanks to one and all.
Hello, “The great gift isn’t forgiveness. The great gift is fellowship.”
Thanks Skip! These are words often needing to be heard by someone whose childhood was marked by the type of discipline that measured consequences by conditions met: polite toward other adults, shared with peers, seen and not heard, etc.
As a senior adult believer, I am starting to value “fellowship with God and others” over this seeming distorted sense of ever trying to be and remain forgiven. I hear you saying (prayerfully expressed by me), take who I was and meld it into who I am and what you created me to be. Amen!
David R
Speaking of ‘inclusion’ and ‘fellowship’ …….my husband and I will be house sitting for approx 2 months in Buckinghamshire UK….Would be nice to try and connect with any Torah ‘diggers’ on Shabbat who may live in that area? if so please email me at:- alemetu@hushmail.com
Skip – just getting into the two downloads I could finally order ‘Crossing’ and ‘Ten Commandment Pictographs’……They both look interesting and I look forward to reading studying them…..
I just turned to the word YHWH in the Ten Commandements Pictographs and read this;-
“YHVH”
‘We investigated this word in the first verse. We concluded that the divine name
contains His deeds and is therefore the guarantee of His promises. In an Egyptian
culture, what matters is what the god does! As YHVH sets forth His expectations for
worship, the relevant background is the authority demonstrated by His acts. The
guarantee of His status as the only true God is the exodus itself. He is the one who
accomplished the liberation. He is the one who established a new nation. He is suzerain and as such his rule is unquestioned. His acts prove it.’
Makes me think of Isaiah 45:5-6……….There is no other Elhoim only YHWH.
‘what matters is what the god (YHWH) does’!
Thanks for making these downloads available…so nice to be where the internet can download them – at last!
Blessings – loved the pics of South Africa
Those last two paragraphs just leave me speechless…His great love for us..
“We are the children of God because He says we are, not because we did anything to deserve being His children but simply because we were favored with His love gift to us.”
And, in my case, it is the blessing of being in a generational line of zealous believers (though not completely Torah ways). They kept me in prayers! I sense ABBA’s presence from a very lonely childhood in the care of relatives, unloved. I believe His compassion is upon those who are miserable, oppressed and neglected. His love encompasses them, and He leads them to His ways! YEAY!
“The great gift isn’t forgiveness. It is fellowship. Forgiveness is simply the by-product of God’s determination to include us in His family.”
YES, indeed!! HalleluYAH, Skip, for this inspiring insight.
Real forgiveness, first, reveals our short-comings, then to point the way to turn back to His ways, MUST lead to profitable fellowship with ABBA and His Family.
Thank you, Skip.
Rebirth – By the Spirit of God. Led by the Spirit of God. Being filled with the Spirit of Christ.
Are but a few thoughts that cross my mind…
The question I need to ask is why some and not all experience the desire to do more…
All the apostles before Paul were called by Jesus, Jesus’ beloved apostle Peter was not the one to guide and assist Paul but the unknown, little heard of Ananias.
And it is only after Paul began to write to the congregations that those chosen before him did likewise…
Does this mean the remolding did not work or is it a fact that the remolding and rebirth is solely as God intends and no matter what we claim or say we will not achieve greater Godly endowment without it being willed by God.
And all we can do until then is study to learn to understand more because when we do something out of a guilt feeling we are not being empowered but rather chastised…
Jesus said to Nicodemus “7Marvel not that I said unto thee, Ye must be born again. 8The wind bloweth where it listeth, and thou hearest the sound thereof, but canst not tell whence it cometh, and whither it goeth: so is every one that is born of the Spirit.”
This tells me that irrespective of how much I research or uncover I will still not be spiritually endowed or empowered until such time that God wants me to be an instrument. Other than during these “episodes of being tasked” I cannot continue saying God has sent me for this or that but rather I can just claim I trust this or that may be what is meant by the records of how God used others.
David the fellowship you are referring to would this be similar to the one mentioned in Acts 2?
He truly is a Good ? Good ?
Father !