Total Package

July 19, 2026

Imagine being a child in an orphanage. You have no name, no family, no certainty about tomorrow. Then one day a family walks in, looks across a room full of children, and points to you. “We want you,” they say. In that moment, you might think only of the bare minimum: a roof, food, someone looking out for you. But you wouldn’t yet understand the total package of a permanent name, the unconditional love, and the full inheritance of being truly adopted. That is the picture John is painting in 1 John 3:1 when 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” (ESV). That first word, “see,” is better translated “Behold!” or “Stop everything and look at this.” The word John uses for “what kind” of love means literally “out of this world.” In three verses, John answers the three deepest questions every human being carries: Who am I? Where am I going? Why am I here? The answer to each one is bound up in what you receive because of Jesus.