We Are Children of God!

Several people that I’ve spoken to have recently expressed their shock regarding the current condition of the world. With the pandemic, the war, and the seemingly breakdown of many of the systems we’ve all counted on in the past, things seem to be deteriorating at a rapid pace. One of my work colleagues remarked, “It’s really scaring out there. It makes you want to just stay at home and lock your doors.” In truth, that is what fear is designed to do. It’s spearheaded by the devil to fill people with anxiety and cause them to want to hide. If this kind of insecurity continues to increase, people will feel as though they can’t trust anything or anyone. As children of the Most High, we can’t allow this kind of fear to be rooted in our hearts. We can’t afford to deny or neglect our identity in Christ, for he has made us more than conquerors, and there is much to do for our Lord and Savior in this final hour.

We are God’s children! Believers hear this quite often. In fact, many of us have become so accustomed to hearing it that we no longer allow the heft of this reality to capture us. The age that we’re living in is often referred to as the ‘Information Age.’ It’s called this because of the overwhelming availability of information, and this information is rapidly funneled through a variety of mediums. So, we have become accustomed to receiving real-time information of all kinds, and much of this overwhelms our senses. We no longer take the time to discern what is good or bad, truth or lies. Instead, we take it all in without thinking about what it’s doing to our souls. When soaking in any and everything becomes a habit, we can’t really learn who we are and what we’re meant to do in life.

The pattern set by our educational systems is such that we hear or digest what is being taught, and then we take it in by studying what has been presented. We let it percolate in our brain cells, so to speak, and then we’re tested on what we’ve learned. The testing is a way of ensuring that we’ve comprehended what has been taught. This pattern is proven effective, but we all know oh so well that sometimes the information isn’t retained. We don’t soak in important information to the point where it becomes rooted in our understanding. Society teaches us instant gratification is the way to go. We want everything on the double, and we allow this attitude to infiltrate other aspects of our lives. Studying just enough to get a passing grade is commonplace, and while this might get us through high school, a quick study isn’t going to cut it when it comes to the reality that we are God’s children.

God knew about our tendency to want and desire blessings quickly. He knew long ago that we would try to bypass the virtue of patience, and He also knew how detrimental this would be to our faith. It was the thing that got Adam and Eve into so much trouble. God placed them in the middle of paradise, and He provided everything they could have ever wanted, but they wanted more, and they wanted more quickly. Appealing to their lower senses of greed and arrogance, Genesis 3:6(NLT) says, “She saw that the tree was beautiful and its fruit looked delicious, and she wanted the wisdom it would give her. So she took some of the fruit and ate it. Then she gave some to her husband, who was with her, and he ate it, too.”

God had commanded Adam and Eve not to eat of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, but they thought it would make them equal to God, and that Heavenly Father was withholding a blessing from them. So, they bowed to the devil and sold their souls to him through their disobedience to God. A sinful nature entered their physical being, and they lost the holiness God had given them. This was not God’s original intention. It wasn’t His Will for Adam and Eve to sin and cause such colossal damage to humanity, but God knew that they would. Even before He created them, He had a Redemption Plan in place to take care of the sin issue through our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ.

Genesis 1:26 tells us that God created us in His own image. He did this because He wanted a family; He wanted children. Romans 8:29(NLT) tells us, “For God knew his people in advance, and he chose them to become like his Son, so that his Son would be the firstborn among many brothers and sisters.” We are siblings of our Big Brother, Jesus Christ, and God’s desire for us is to become like Christ in every way.

God warned Adam and Eve about the consequences of disobeying Him because He didn’t want them to live a life of bondage and despair. But He had given them free-will, and He will never withdraw or alter the gifts He gives us. It was their choice to sin. He told them they’d die if they ate of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, and this is exactly what happened. They died spiritually and were cut off from God after they sinned.

1Thessalonians 5:23 teaches us that we are three-part beings, human spirit, human soul, and human body. Romans 6:23 tells us that the wages of sin, or the price that must be paid for it, is death. When Adam and Eve took sin into themselves, their human spirits died, and they walked around with a dead spirit inside them. This is the condition we are all in before we give our lives to Christ. God’s Holy Spirit could no longer commune with Adam and Eve in their sinful state. They were cursed by sin and darkness and so were all of us, but God changed this by giving the life of His only begotten Son, Jesus Christ, as a sacrifice for our sins.

When Jesus Christ died on the Cross of Calvary, we died with him. And when he was resurrected, we were resurrected with him. In other words, because of what God accomplished through the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ, we were raised to new life! Colossians 2:12(NLT) affirms, “For you were buried with Christ when you were baptized. And with him you were raised to new life because you trusted the mighty power of God, who raised Christ from the dead.” God doesn’t fellowship with our flesh and blood bodies, now that we are spiritually alive, He fellowships and communes with our spirits. He does this through His Holy Spirit.

Jesus Christ teaches us in John 4:24(NLT), “For God is Spirit, so those who worship him must worship in spirit and in truth.” Worshipping and fellowshipping with God is the most precious privilege and responsibility that any of us can imagine. We can worship and fellowship with Him through Jesus Christ because God has placed His Holy Spirit inside our human spirits. This happened when we became born again through Christ. Our faith went up to God, and He sent His Spirit to live inside our human spirit, which is the highest part of our beings. Romans 8:16(NLT) declares, “For his Spirit joins with our spirit to affirm that we are God’s children.”

In order for us to worship God in spirit and in truth, we must know the truth. We have to study God’s Word to the point that it becomes deeply rooted in our hearts and minds. God has given us a body to be in relationship with others, to love, serve, and express His love to one another. However, the real action is in the mind and heart. The mind and heart are the gateways that allow God’s Word to become a part of us, and this is why He commands us to know and love Him, so we can live in the light of His truth.

Galatians 4:6(NLT) says, “And because we are his children, God has sent the Spirit of his Son into our hearts, prompting us to call out, “Abba, Father.” The mind and heart tell the true story about who we are, what we believe, and how committed we are to God through Jesus Christ. We should spend our entire lives focusing on the Father and expressing our deepest gratitude for what He has done for us through Jesus Christ. He’s made it possible for us to be His children, and because of this, we can be confident in His overwhelming and unconditional love for us all.■

Scripture quotations marked (NLT) are taken from the Holy Bible, New Living Translation, copyright © 1996. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers, Inc., Wheaton, Illinois 60189. All rights reserved.

4TheChristianMan

Christian encouragement and inspiration for men

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