God’s Beloved Child

So how can we know for sure that our separation has ended?  Is this really the message of God’s Word?  Let’s move now from our picture of the study door being flung wide open to the Scriptures.  This idea that our separation from our Father has ended is completely wrapped up in our identity as God’s child.

“You are sons of God being led by the Spirit of God.  For you have not received a spirit of slavery leading to fear again, but you have received a spirit of adoption as sons by which we cry out, ‘Abba! Father!’  The Spirit Himself bears witness with our spirit that we are children of God, and if children, heirs also, heirs of God and fellow-heirs with Christ” (Rom 8:14-17).

Look at how many times in these four short verses our identity as God’s child is highlighted.  “Sons of Godadopted as sonswe cry, ‘Abba! Father!’children of Godheirs of God.”  What a glorious picture of our sonship.  What an incredible list of identifiers.  Our connection to God is fully formed because of our new relationship with the Father.  We are literally a child of God Himself.

This adoption as sons and daughters is all fueled by God’s great love for us.  “See how great a love the Father has bestowed upon us, that we should be called children of God; and such we are” (I Jn 3:1).  God’s great love has brought us into the fold, and it is a love from which we can never be separated.

“Who shall separate us from the love of Christ?  Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword? … But in all these things we overwhelmingly conquer through Him who loved us.  For I am convinced that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor things present, nor things to come, nor power, nor height, nor depth, nor any other created thing, shall be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord” (Rom 8:35, 37-39).

Your connection to God – your identity as His child – is final and secure because it rests entirely on God’s love.  It does not rest on your obedience, your effort, your feelings, your experience, or any other created thing.  Your secure connection fully stands on the foundation of God’s love; a love that sprung into action when God poured out His grace upon you and me.

This love and grace was expressed to us in the highest way possible when Christ died in our place.  Jesus took on our sin, our guilt, and our punishment in His death.  And it was this expression of love that opened wide the door to God’s holy place and welcomed us in as the beloved child of God.

One thought on “God’s Beloved Child”

Comments are closed.