These words too often conjure up trite or twee images of Jesus with a crowd of multi-ethnic children clustered around his long robes or of a little lamb on Jesus' shoulders.
The truth though of these words is profound once grasped and completely life changing.
Too many of us grew up in the faith as spiritual orphans with no spiritual fathers and mothers to love, guide and watch over us. Spiritual mums and dads help us find our identity in our spiritual family. We have many spiritual brothers and sisters and together we have made it up as we went along, helping each other but lacking anyone of spiritual maturity to help us discover our identity as children of God. This can cause us to have great difficulty connecting with our heavenly Father. So many Christians are spiritual orphans struggling to know how much the Father loves and approves of them. Too many are still trying to clean themselves up or get their act together so that Father will love them. The truth is he already loves us unconditionally and approves of us completely. The prodigal son was accepted back into the family by his adoring father, stinking of the pig pen and with nothing other to offer than a heartfelt apology and yet the father, barely listened to the apology but drew him into his arms and put on a feast.
This story alone illustrates God's heart towards us. But should we need further convincing, Jesus' continual acceptance of the down and outs of society and gracious patience with the shortcomings of the disciples is evidence enough that how God feels about us is nothing like anyone else's love or affection.
Once we get hold of the corner of this truth and start pulling on it, our lives are changed forever. Not only is God our loving, adoring, accepting Father but that means we are his children. The closest analogy I can come up with is that this means we are part of the Royal Family with access to the king at all times, all the privileges of this position and all the resources of the Kingdom available to us at all times.
There is no need to feel worthless, useless, insecure, undervalued, condemned and inadequate. Indeed to do so is to fly in the face of all that Jesus has done on the cross to give us this privileged position. We are indeed children of God and as this revelation grows in our hearts so will our love for the lost, the poor, the needy and the undervalued of society. Sharing God's love with others is the greatest privilege.
Knowing we are a child of God changes everything both for us and for all those we come into contact with.
No comments:
Post a Comment