Who's Your Daddy?
Are you a child of God? Is God your Father? Are you sure? To be mistaken on this point, is to make the greatest blunder of your life. Has God been made to be your Father through the divine adoption? There is no other way. You and I are not natural born children of the King. We were born as filthy outcasts, enemies of God by nature, confirming our exclusion from God's family by our continual sinful behavior. If left to our natural selves, we would, even today, run headlong down the path of iniquity, filling up our sins and bringing upon ourselves the wrath of God to the uttermost. We do not, by nature, exemplify the character of the Heavenly Father. Rather, we are "by nature, children of wrath," "sons of disobedience," and children of another father (John 8:44).
But if we have heard the voice of the Savior to "Deny yourself daily, pick up your cross and follow Me," if we have forsaken sin, thrown ourselves into the arms of the Almighty to be cleansed and set apart for His glory, and been made fit for service in His Kingdom -- then, and only then, can we be assured that we belong to Him. If you have been truly born from above, grafted into the Vine, and see the buds of love and obedience pushing through the tough skin of your old nature, then you can rejoice with the apostle Paul and say, "I am persuaded, that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present, nor things to come, Nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature, shall be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord" because God has adopted you into his family and made you his very own child. Oh, what a precious privilege it is to have "received the Spirit of adoption, whereby we cry, Abba, Father."
But, how the "many" will weep and wail on that dreadful day, when the illegitimate children -- those who have called Christ their "Lord," prayed in His name, and had all outward signs of piety and religion to impress the world and ease their guilty consciences -- hear those frightful words "Depart from me, I never knew you!" These are not words for God's true children, but rather, they are aimed at the hypocrites -- those who "named the name of Christ" but did not "depart from iniquity." Those of whom Jesus says "draws near to me with their mouth, and honors me with their lips; but their heart is far from me." In other words, they are those who profess to love Christ, but refuse to do what He says. They are "hearers of the Word but not doers." The old adage is true -- "God loves all His children." But on that Day, when the secret sins of men and women are exposed, what will become of those who have merely played the part of a Christian, pretending to be in God's family, but are not His sons and daughters after all?
Have you ever looked into the mirror of God's Law and seen your true condition? Have you yet to be convinced by the Commandments that your sin has really and truly made you an unclean and vile thing in the eyes of God? Have you been made to suspect, by the evidence of your everyday thoughts and works, that your heart is "deceitful above all else," that God is not your natural father, but that you more resemble your true father, the Devil? (John 8:44; Ephesians 2:2). If God has granted you eyes to see and ears to hear and you are persuaded that you must abandon your natural heritage and be born again or perish, then don't wait a moment longer. Fling yourself in repentance and faith upon the Savior while there is still time. Be made a new creature in Christ -- adopted into His family, a true child of the King.
Jesus hung on the cross for you, bloody and bruised, purchasing for you what you could not earn for yourself -- a birth certificate of a heavenly sort, that names "God" as your father. Then He rose from the grave, destroying death and the power of sin, and now calls to you from the right hand of God to "Repent... believe... and be saved." (See Acts 17:30-31; Romans 10:13; John 3:16)
"But as many as received him, to them gave he power to become the sons of God, even to them that believe on his name: Which were born, not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God." (John 1:12-13)
For more information about how to further grow in your faith, please see "Ten Steps for New and Growing Christians."