I received great encouragement from the first couple of verses from chapter 3 of John’s first epistle in which he writes, “How great is the love the Father has lavished on us, that we should be called children of God!  And that is what we are!..Dear friends, now we are children of God, and what we will be has not yet been made known.  But we know that when he appears, we shall be like him, for we shall see him as he is.” (NIV)  John Stott points to John’s amazement of our adoption as God’s children by his use of the Greek word potapen, which the NIV renders “how great” in the beginning of verse 1.  Stott writes:

The expression how great translates potapen which meant originally ‘of what country’.  It is as if the Father’s love is so unearthly, so foreign to this world, that John wonders from what country it may come.  The word ‘always implies astonishment’.  This love God has not only ‘shown’ us, but actually lavished on us.

May you and I grow in our astonishment and wonder of God’s grace which flows down upon us wholly and completely in Christ.