"Beloved, now are we the sons of God"—not tomorrow, but right now—that is the wonderful part of it. The world won’t understand us, that’s for sure, because it didn’t understand Him. It takes a spiritual insight, and that comes through the anointing which we have talked about that He has given to us. The Spirit of God is the one who can make this real to us, and only the Spirit of God can do that, my friend. Until He confirms it to your heart, of course, you must say, "I don’t know whether I am saved." But the Spirit of God can confirm this to your heart.

John says, "Beloved, now are we the sons of God." But someone says to me, "McGee, I’m a little discouraged with you. I think you ought to be a little farther along." I would agree with you on that. I wish I were a better man, and I wish I knew more about the Word of God. Yes, I’d be willing to go along with that—I ought to be farther along than I am. But don’t you be discouraged with me, and then I won’t be discouraged with you because of the fact that "it doth not yet appear what we shall be."

"But we know that, when he shall appear, we shall be like him." This is a wonderful prospect! He sees in you and in me what He will make out of us. I’m thankful that God is not through with me. If I thought He was through with me now, I would be very much discouraged, but He is yet to perform a work.

The story is told that when a great big piece of marble was brought in to him, Michelangelo walked around it, looking at it, and then said, "My, isn’t it beautiful!" One of his helpers who was standing there said, "Well, all I see is a great big piece of marble—that’s all." Michelangelo exclaimed, "Oh, I forgot. You don’t see what I see. I see a statue of David there." The helper looked again and replied, "Well, I don’t see it." Michelangelo said, "That is because it is now in my own mind, but I am going to translate it into this piece of marble." And that is what he did. God says, "It doth not yet appear what you shall be." He sees what He is going to make out of us someday. We are discouraged when we look at each other as we are now, but God sees us as we shall be when He shall appear and we shall be like Him. What a glorious prospect this is for us!

"We shall be like him; for we shall see him as he is." We are going to see the glorified Christ. We are not going to be equal to Him, but we are going to be like Him in our own way. This does not mean that all of us are going to be little robots or simply little duplicates—it is not that at all. We will be like Him but with our own personalities, our own individualities, our own selves. He will never destroy the person of Vernon McGee. He’ll not destroy the person that you are, but He is going to bring you up to the full measure, the stature where you will be like Him—not identical to Him, but like Him.

It is going to be wonderful in heaven that we will love everybody—I’m excited about that. But the most wonderful thing about heaven to me is that everybody is going to love me! That’s going to be quite a change, and I’m looking forward to it. "Beloved, now are we the sons of God, and it doth not yet appear what we shall be: but we know that, when he shall appear, we shall be like him; for we shall see him as he is." This is another great incentive to Christian living. I do not think there is anything else quite like it.

McGee, J. V. (1991). Thru the Bible commentary: The Epistles (1 John) (electronic ed., Vol. 56, pp. 86–87). Nashville: Thomas Nelson.