If I were to ask you if everyone is a child of God, what would your answer be? When I ask this same question to a large group of mostly Christian people, I usually get a resounding “Yes!” I think their answer is probably based on the clear and biblical fact that God loves everyone. So if God loves everyone, then everyone is God’s child, right? Wrong.
I’m not writing this because I want to correct your biblical beliefs, I’m writing this because if you don’t have a clear understanding of who is a child of God and what it means to be God’s child, you’re going to miss out on much of God’s power that’s available for your everyday life.
If you don’t have a clear understanding of who is a child of God and especially what it means to be God’s child, you’re going to miss out on much of God’s power that’s available for your everyday life.
While the Bible is clear that God loves everyone (John 3:16, Romans 5:8), it’s also clear that in order to be a child of God, we must first accept Jesus as our Savior and trust in him. John 1:12 says, “Yet to all who did receive him, to those who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God.” To state this another way, God is God to everyone, but is Father only to the believer. Jesus confirms this same idea in John 8:44.
3 Ways Your Understanding of God As Your Father Affects Your Life
1. As a child of God I can have a supernatural revelation of my Father’s love for me.
As God’s child, you have the Holy Spirit living in you. Romans 5:5 tells us that it’s the Holy Spirit who pours the love of God into our hearts. That doesn’t mean that God loves you more (which is impossible) but that you actually begin to realize and feel his love for you. This is important because when you get a revelation of God’s love for you, you feel secure and have a sense of significance. As a pastoral counselor, I’ve noticed that many people struggle in life because they’re on a continual search for significance. We all have a need to feel significant, but the world we live in has a hard time giving that to us. But when you get a supernatural download from the Holy Spirit revealing your Father’s amazing love for you, you can’t help but feel significant and secure. If you’re not sure of the Father’s love for you, just stop and ask the Holy Spirit to reveal it to you. He’ll not only reveal it to your brain, but he’ll help you feel it deep within your heart.
2. As a child of God I have access to all of God’s power.
As I stated earlier, when you accept Jesus and trust in him as your Savior, the Holy Spirit comes and lives in you. That means that the presence and power of God resides in you! Jesus told us in John 14:12 that we (believers) would do the same things that he was doing. And what did Jesus do? He healed the sick, raised the dead, cleansed the lepers, cast out demons, and preached salvation – exactly what he told us to do in Matthew 10:7-8. Without the Holy Spirit these things are only a pipe dream. But with the Holy Spirit living inside you as a child of God, amazing things are possible.
3. As a child of God I have a purpose.
Far too many Christians think their purpose in life is to behave themselves and try to make it to church on Sunday. While good behavior and church attendance are good traits to have, they themselves are not our purpose in life. Our purpose is to participate in the family business. I’m not talking about your uncle’s pizza shop or your earthly dad’s widget factory. I’m talking about your Father’s business. He’s actually a king who’s running a kingdom and he’s asked you to participate with him. In fact, Revelation 1:6 says you are a king in his kingdom. This isn’t something that we can flaunt and lord over others, but rather it’s a call to serve powerfully as servant leaders in the Kingdom of God. The Bible also calls you a citizen of heaven and an ambassador for Christ on this earth (2 Corinthians 5:20). Our purpose is to bring the will of heaven to earth, just like Jesus taught us to pray in the Lord’s Prayer. I don’t know about you, but to me that sounds like a pretty significant purpose. Now I actually have a reason to get out of bed in the morning!
To summarize, everyone is loved by God but not everyone is God’s child. To be God’s child you must choose to accept Jesus as your Savior. Once you accept Jesus, the Holy Spirit comes to reside in you and gives you a revelation of God’s amazing love for you, empowers you to walk in the supernatural power of God, and gives you purpose in life.
As usual, you have explained this perfectly! Good one for me to save and share. Thanks
I agree with your biblical premise that everyone is not a child of God (univeralism). The Gospel needs to be clear when we preach it. We both agree that man is a sinner, Jesus Christ died and rose again to pay for our sin and only when we belief on Christ’s Person and redemptive work alone can we be saved.
Where I’m sure you would not agree with me but I challenge you to search the Scriptures on this point, namely, man is “dead in trespasses & sins” (Ephesians 2:1). A spiritually dead man cannot understand or respond to the Gospel unless he is supernaturally made alive by the Holy Spirit (Ephesians 2:5) “even when we were dead in our trespasses, (God) made us alive together with Christ.”
The common passage that we often reference that we are saved by grace and not by works is Ephesians 2:8-9: “For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, not a result of works, so that no one may boast.”
Mike, the closes antecedent of “And this is not your own doing,” that is our “faith” is not brought about by our own doing (because we were spiritually dead). But, when the Holy Spirit regenerated us (i.e., gave us spiritual life), then we had the ability to understand and accept the Gospel of Jesus Christ.
John 1:12-13 reiterates this important point: “But to all who did receive him, who believed in his name, he gave the right to become the children of God, who were born, not of blood nor of the will of the flesh nor of the will of man, but of God.”
1Corinthians 2:10-16 clearly states that the “natural person” (i.e., the unsaved person) cannot accept the things of the Spirit of God, “not able to understand spiritual things.” These things can only be understood as “God has revealed to us through the Spirit.”
The bottom line is that man cannot choose to believe God, but rather God chooses man to believe in Him (1 John 4:19). Our responsibility is to preach the Gospel and trust in the Holy Spirit who He will sovereignly regenerate to respond to the Gospel.
Because of His Grace,
Wes Teterud
Thanks for the comment, Wes. I agree with your statement that it’s the Holy Spirit that draws us to Jesus and gives us, as you stated, “the ability to understand and accept the Gospel of Jesus Christ.” I think where we might differ is whether or not that wooing of the Holy Spirit can be resisted by man.