Two
things especially ministered to me this morning. The first was the reminder of
what it means that God is a Father who wants people like me as his children.
The verse I considered is this: “See what
kind of love the Father has given to us, that we should be called children of
God; and so we are.”[1]
What
this came down to for me is that there is this God who is “the Father.” The thing that stands out about him in relation to
people like me is the “kind of love” that
he has. Not only is there a distinctive characteristic to this love that makes
it utterly desirable to the human heart, but it is “given to us”. And, the way this Father has given his love to the
people referred to as “us” is that “we should be called children of God.”
All
of that communicates such a profound reality that it leaves the seeking heart
in awe and wonder that such a thing could be true. That is, if the “and so we are,” is talking about us.
This
Scripture is talking about people who are the children of God through their
faith in our Lord Jesus Christ. Jesus is the way, the truth, and the life who
brings us to the Father,[2]
and, once we come to the Father through Jesus Christ, God assures us of both
the certainty, and the security, of his love.
Along
with this wonderful and wonder-filled expression of the loving relationship
between Father and child, I was reminded of the three ways that God speaks to
us. It is as though God has covered every possible way that we would need to
hear from him, all with the aim of assuring us that he is the Father who loves
his children with undying love.
God
speaks to us through creation. This is something like the way we can speak to
one another without words, showing our affection for each other with smiles, hugs,
kisses, cuddles, tears, and the like. God’s word says, “For his invisible attributes, namely, his eternal power and divine
nature, have been clearly perceived, ever since the creation of the world, in
the things that have been made. So they are without excuse.”[3]
The things God has made tell us a lot of things about God, but there is more.
God
also speaks through his word, the Bible. This is what he says about his written
word, “All Scripture is breathed out by
God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training
in righteousness, that the man of God may be complete, equipped for every good
work.”[4]
God gives us his words so we have no doubt who he is, and what he has done for
us. While the glory of his creation is wonderful, he makes sure we will have no
problem knowing what he means by putting his thoughts into words.
The
third way God speaks is directly through his Son, our Lord Jesus Christ. Jesus is
called, “the Word of God”.[5]
God has thoughts that are invisible to us, and Jesus is the Word who reveals
those thoughts. Jesus is the “image of the invisible God,”[6]
meaning the one who makes the invisible God knowable to us. The written word of
God explains it further like this: “Long
ago, at many times and in many ways, God spoke to our fathers by the prophets, but
in these last days he has spoken to us by his Son, whom he appointed the heir
of all things, through whom also he created the world.”[7]
God
makes his eternal power and divine nature known through creation; he clearly
describes himself to us in his written words; and he speaks through his Son,
the Word of God who makes God known as personally as God can be known.
In
a world that believes the lie of evolution, tramples on the written word of
God, and denies the Son of God, those who can say that God has reached into our
hearts and made us into his children through our faith in the Lord Jesus Christ must rejoice that God has spoken to us, and that all his words lead us to the
grand and wonderful conclusion that we are the beloved children of the God of
everlasting love.
All
of us must make sure that we are one of these children.
© 2014 Monte Vigh ~
Box 517, Merritt, BC, V1K 1B8 ~ in2freedom@gmail.com
Unless otherwise
noted, Scriptures are from the English Standard Version (The Holy Bible,
English Standard Version Copyright © 2001 by Crossway
Bibles, a division of Good News Publishers.)
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