You are a Child of God
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You are a child of God
You are a child of God
Jesus talked about His heavenly father, but when asked how we should pray he told the disciples to pray like this
Pray then like this:
“Our Father in heaven,
hallowed be your name.
Your kingdom come,
your will be done,
on earth as it is in heaven.
Give us this day our daily bread,
and forgive us our debts,
as we also have forgiven our debtors.
And lead us not into temptation,
but deliver us from evil.
OUR HEAVENLY FATHER, Jesus had already instructed His disciples to address God as Father. This would have been quite a statement at the time. Jesus is saying we can approach God in the same manner as a child can approach its father.
Remember.... the Jews wouldn't even say the name of God, they abbreviated it when written and it was so Holy that when scribes wrote the abbreviated name of God they would destroy the quill and start with another one.
Its sometime easy for us in our 21st century western minds to lose the impact and power of this statement. We can approach the Almighty God as freely as children approach a good father.
Interestingly the first recorded sentence of JESUS AND ONE OF THE LAST refer to God as father Lk 2:49 “Jesus said to them, “Why would you need to search for me? Didn’t you know that it was necessary for me to be here in my Father’s house, consumed with him?”” & Lk23:46 “Then Jesus cried out with a loud voice, “Father, I surrender my Spirit into your hands.” And he took his last breath and died.”
Now we can choose to dismiss this as a personal relationship between Jesus and God. We know that Jesus literally had an earthly Mother and a Heavenly Father. But I think Jesus was deliberate in everything he did, and Im certain that the gospel writers were deliberate in the things the recorded.
Jesus wanted to change the mindset of believers. God is not just a Spiritual presence that we can not approach, but he is the father of all creation, and we carry His DNA.
God is described as father 90 times in John, 45 times in Matt, 17 times in Luke and 5 times in Mark.
Jesus was describing the character of God, Jesus says things like
If you then, who are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father who is in heaven give good things to those who ask him!
so that you may be sons of your Father who is in heaven. For he makes his sun rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the just and on the unjust.
You therefore must be perfect, as your heavenly Father is perfect.
Jesus called God father, not because He created us, not because He rules over us, not because He made a covenant with Abraham, but because He loves us.
Read the The Parable of the lost Son
Luke 15:11 “Then Jesus said, “Once there was a father with two sons.”
The Parable of the lost Son
This is a story that demonstrates the father heart of God towards sinners.
This story can be seen as the Parable of the lost Son, The two sons, the jealous son, or the loving father
YOU ARE A CHILD OF GOD
In Romans it tells us that we are Children of God. That we were adopted
For you did not receive the spirit of slavery to fall back into fear, but you have received the Spirit of adoption as sons, by whom we cry, “Abba! Father!”
That is exactly what happened in the story of the two sons,
The son who was lost in the world, became an heir in the Fathers house
In a few weeks we will be celebrating fathers day, and we will acknowledge that sometimes our relationship with our earthly fathers is complex.
but we take time to celebrate good fathers, godly fathers. We have to remember that we live in a broken world and our experience of having fathers, or even being fathers can reflect some of that brokenness in the world.
However God is not a flawed earthly father he is a perfect holy father.
SO what does being a child of God means to us today?
It means you are loved, unconditionally
Now when all the people were baptized, and when Jesus also had been baptized and was praying, the heavens were opened, and the Holy Spirit descended on him in bodily form, like a dove; and a voice came from heaven, “You are my beloved Son; with you I am well pleased.”
Here Jesus has not performed any miracle, he hasn’t preached any world changing sermon, he has just been himself, and God says you are my beloved son, I am well pleased
God Loves you.....
He finds pleasure in you
He rejoices of you
You are precious
Not because of anything you have done, but because He is your father.
being a son means you are loved by the father,
it also means you are free to move within you fathers house/land/estate/kingdom
There are freedoms that come with being a Child
it means you don’t need to have permission to enter His presence
You can approach Him without an appointment, because you are His
It means no one else can refuse you time with Him, not the enemy, not any one, you have direct access
It also means you carry some of the authority of the father
What do I mean some of the authority?
There are some things in which we cary the FULL authority of God, these are the things he has told us to do the instructions he has given us
Growing up with other siblings I know the difference between acting in my fathers authority and using my father to get what i want.
We can only act in the authority of our father when we stay within the bounds of His will, this is why Jesus says, “I only do what i see the father doing” as soon as we step outside of His will, or the boundaries put in place we find our selfs isolated and alone. Like the prodigal son
As Children of God we become Heirs, with an inheritance
Gal4:7 “Now we’re no longer living like slaves under the law, but we enjoy being God’s very own sons and daughters! And because we’re his, we can access everything our Father has—for we are heirs of God through Jesus, the Messiah!”
It means we have eternal live
so that being justified by his grace we might become heirs according to the hope of eternal life.
It means that we have a place set for us before the world was even created
Then the King will say to those on his right, ‘Come, you who are blessed by my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world.
Its guaranteed for all eternity
1 Peter 1:3–5 (ESV)
Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ! According to his great mercy, he has caused us to be born again to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, to an inheritance that is imperishable, undefiled, and unfading, kept in heaven for you, who by God’s power are being guarded through faith for a salvation ready to be revealed in the last time.
So what do we do with this?
We should go out in to this world knowing that we are Loved, with a love that goes beyond all earthly experience
That we are more
than citizens of heaven, we are heirs
that we carry the authority of our heavenly father
Nothing can separate us from the Love of God
