Tag: children of God

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Acts Devotionals

Our authority as children of God

The evil spirit answered them, “I know Jesus, and I recognize Paul—but who are you?” (Acts 19:15)

I found the evil spirit’s words interesting.

They certainly recognized Jesus and his authority over them. But they also were aware of Paul and the fact that through his relationship with Jesus, through his status as a child of God, Paul had authority over them too.

The question is, do we realize the authority that we have as children of God?

If we stand our ground, the Enemy has to back down. He has no power over us except what we let him have.

That’s why Paul tells us to stand our ground in Ephesians. (Ephesians 6:13-14)

That’s why James tells us to resist the devil in his letter. (James 4:7)

So remember the authority you have, child of God.

As John tells us,

You are from God, little children, and you have conquered them, because the one who is in you is greater than the one who is in the world. (1 John 4:4)

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1 John Devotionals

Walking in darkness? Walking in the light?

1 John

1 John 3:4-10 are among the more difficult in the Bible and can cause many Christians to doubt their salvation. Why? Because it seems to be saying that those who sin are not truly Christians.

That is clearly not what John means, however, as we’ve seen in 1 John 1:8-10 and 2:1.

So what does he mean?

I think we see a hint of the answer in 1 John 1:6-7.

True children of God walk in his light, not in darkness. Why?

Because they love God. They believe he is good. And they strive to be like their Heavenly Father.

People living in darkness are not this way. Instead, they have deep-seeded doubts about God, questioning the goodness of his character and his commands. And they essentially say, “If that’s the way you really are, if that’s the way you really think, I want nothing to do with you.”

That was Satan’s attitude.

That was the attitude he passed on to humanity in the garden.

And that’s how many people live today.

Such people have not seen or known Jesus or his Father.

True Christians don’t live that way. They can’t live that way.

Though they may fall into sin, when God’s light exposes it, they repent. No excuses. No trying to justify their sins. And certainly no questioning of his goodness.

The question, then, is not whether you sin or not. All of us sin. The question is if you’re walking in the light or not.

Because if we walk in the light as he is in the light, confessing our sins and repenting of them, the blood of Jesus his Son purifies us from all sin. (I John 1:7)

And the good news is, when our hearts condemn us for our failings, God is greater than our hearts and knows all things. He knows we truly love him and desire to please him. And he accepts us. (1 John 3:20)

So let us rejoice in his grace, singing with John.

See what great love the Father has given us that we should be called God’s children—and we are! (1 John 3:1)

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1 John

The mark of a child of God (part 2)

1 John

We saw yesterday that the mark of a child of God is righteousness. That true children of God seek to be pure as the One they love is pure.

And that when they sin, they can’t do so without feeling remorse for it and repenting.

I remember the one and only time I ever swore in my life. I was just a kid at the time, and I remember making a very deliberate decision to do it. I felt so awful about it afterward that I never did it again.

I think that was a sign that I truly was a child of God. No Christian can make a practice of deliberate sin and not eventually repent of it.

It is possible for them to sin, however. So John encourages us,

And now, dear children, continue in him, so that when he appears we may be confident and unashamed before him at his coming. (1 John 2:28)

How do we “continue in him?” He tells us at the end of chapter 3.

And this is his command: to believe in the name of his Son, Jesus Christ, and to love one another as he commanded us.

Those who obey his commands live in him, and he in them. And this is how we know that he lives in us: We know it by the Spirit he gave us. (1 John 3:23-24)

The words “continue” and “live” are actually the same word in Greek. And John is saying, “If you want to be confident and unashamed when Jesus comes back, obey God. Do what he says.”

What has God told us to do? First and foremost, to believe in Jesus. To put our trust in him for salvation.

That actually is the first mark of a Christian. The whole problem with the human race is that we have turned our backs on God and said, “I’m living for myself. I’m doing things my way.”

The first thing a Christian does is to turn their back on that way of thinking. To say, “Not my way, any longer, Lord. But Your way.”

And the first step to doing that is to embrace the gift of salvation that God offers in Jesus Christ. To stop trying to earn your salvation through your own efforts or through other religions. But to put your faith in Jesus and his work on the cross alone.

But the second part of his command is to love one another. John makes it crystal clear:

This is how we know who the children of God are and who the children of the devil are: Anyone who does not do what is right is not a child of God; nor is anyone who does not love his brother. (1 John 3:10)

Why is John so strong on this point of loving our brother?

For one thing, it is part of the very core of the Christian message. He says,

This is the message that you heard from the beginning: We should love one another. (3:11)

This is not advanced Christianity. This is Christianity 101.

For another, if we truly know the love of Christ in our lives, it should naturally flow out from us.

John says,

This is how we know what love is: Jesus Christ laid down his life for us. And we ought to lay down our lives for our brothers. (3:16)

So a sure mark of a Christian is the love they have for others.

John tells us,

We know that we have passed from death to life, because we love our brothers.

Anyone who does not love remains in death.

Anyone who hates his brother is a murderer, and you know that no murderer has eternal life in him. (3:14-15)

How about you? Do you have the marks of a child of God?

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1 John

The mark of a child of God

child of God

How can we know we are truly children of God? That we are truly saved? I remember having that question when I was a kid. I had received Jesus when I was about 7 years old, but for a long time, I was never quite sure if I was truly saved.

Here in this passage, we find the answer.

John says,

If you know that he is righteous, you know that everyone who does what is right has been born of him. (1 John 2:29)

The ESV puts it,

If you know that he is righteous, you may be sure that everyone who practices righteousness has been born of him.

In other words, if you are truly saved, righteousness will mark your life. This is not to say that you will ever be perfect, but when people look at you, they will see someone who makes a practice of doing what is right.

This is in sharp contrast to how the rest of the world lives. And so John says,

How great is the love the Father has lavished on us, that we should be called children of God. And that is what we are!

The reason the world does not know us is that it did not know him. (1 John 3:1)

When we live as children of God, practicing righteousness, the world has a hard time figuring us out. They can’t understand why we don’t live like they do. Why? Because they don’t know God. And if they don’t know him, they won’t understand us.

John then tells us,

Dear friends, now we are children of God, and what we will be has not yet been made known. But we know that when he appears, we shall be like him, for we shall see him as he is.

Everyone who has this hope in him purifies himself, just as [Jesus] is pure. (3:2)

What is our motivation for righteousness as children of God? Is it that we are trying to earn our way into heaven? Is it that we’re trying to impress other people?

Not at all. Rather John tells us that our motivation is our love for God. He has lavished his great love upon us and called us his children.

Not only that, we have the hope that we will one day be like the One we love. When Jesus returns, we will receive new bodies that will reflect the glory of Jesus himself and we will be like him, perfectly righteous in every way.

Some people think, “Why bother fighting sin? I will never overcome it.”

But if you are a Christian, that’s not true. The day will come when we will be made perfect. There is hope. And John tells us that because true believers have that hope, they desire even now to be pure as Jesus is pure.

So all true Christians long to be pure as the Lord they love.

If you don’t have that longing, can you truly call yourself a Christian?

John tells us that Jesus came to take away our sins. That in Jesus himself there is no sin (3:5)

More, Jesus came to destroy the devil’s work. (3:8)

How then can anyone who claims to be a Christian just sin without conscience, promoting the very work that Jesus came to destroy? They can’t. If anyone does, you have to seriously question if they are saved or not.

Do you think I’m being judgmental? Look at what John says.

No one who continues to sin has either seen him or known him.

Dear children, do not let anyone lead you astray. He who does what is right is righteous, just as he is righteous. He who does what is sinful is of the devil, because the devil has been sinning from the beginning. (3:6-8)

And again,

No one who is born of God will continue to sin, because God’s seed remains in him; he cannot go on sinning, because he has been born of God. (9)

Again, this is not to say that true Christians will never sin. This is saying a true Christian cannot just sin and feel no remorse over it. They will repent and seek to turn from that sin.

So John concludes,

This is how we know who the children of God are, and who the children of the devil are: Anyone who does not do what is right is not a child of God; nor is anyone who does not love his brother. (1 John 3:10)

Whose child are you?

Categories
Galatians

The true children of Abraham

Galatians

As I look at this passage, I can’t help but wonder if Paul thought back to the argument Jesus had with the Jews in John 8. Because essentially, it’s talking about the same issue: who are the true children of Abraham?

To the Jews, it was they who were the true descendants of Abraham. He was, after all, their forefather and what’s more, they had and followed the law of God given through Moses.

And so when Jesus said that if they held to his teaching, they would know the truth and the truth would set them free, they immediately answered,

We are Abraham’s descendants and have never been slaves of anyone. How can you say that we shall be set free? (John 8:33)

And that started a long conversation about who the true children of Abraham were.

Jesus pointed out, “You guys still sin. You claim to be free as children of Abraham, but you are still slaves to sin. But I am the one that can set you free from sin so that you will no longer be slaves to sin, but true children of God.” (John 8:34-36)

When the Jews continued to insist that they were true children of Abraham, Jesus told them,

If you were Abraham’s children…then you would do the things Abraham did.

As it is, you are determined to kill me, a man who has told you the truth that I heard from God. Abraham did not do such things.(John 8:39-40)

In other words, when Abraham heard God’s words, he believed them. He took them by faith, and that’s what saved him. That’s what made him a child of God.

But the Jews proved themselves to be not true children of Abraham because they didn’t accept Jesus and his words by faith. Instead they rejected him.

And that’s what Paul is saying here in Galatians.

Consider Abraham: “He believed God, and it was credited to him as righteousness.”

Understand, then, that those who believe are children of Abraham.

The Scripture foresaw that God would justify the Gentiles by faith, and announced the gospel in advance to Abraham: “All nations will be blessed through you.”

So those who have faith are blessed along with Abraham, the man of faith. (Galatians 3:6-9)

Paul is saying here, that Abraham himself was not credited as righteous by his keeping the law. The law had not even come into existence yet. Further, if you look at his life, Abraham fell into sin from time to time.

But ultimately, he was justified by God because he had put his faith in God and His promise.

All true children of Abraham are the same way. We may fail. We may sin. But we are not credited as righteous because we keep the law perfectly. Rather, we are credited as righteous because we put our faith in Jesus.

In fact, Paul says that if we try to earn this status as “righteous before God” through our works, we actually put ourselves under a curse. For,

Cursed is everyone who does not continue to do everything written in the Book of the Law. (Galatians 3:10)

And as I said, no one keeps it perfectly.

But Christ took our curse for us. More, Paul says,

Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law by becoming a curse for us, for it is written: “Cursed is everyone who is hung on a tree.” (Galatians 3:13)

By dying on the cross, he took all the curse of the law upon himself, taking all of God’s wrath toward us upon himself. Paul then tells us that Jesus redeemed us, that is, he bought us out of slavery to sin and Satan’s kingdom.

And now, the blessing of salvation that Abraham received is available to us if we do what Abraham did: simply believe in the promises of God.

In short,

No one is justified before God by the law, because, “The righteous will live by faith.” (Galatians 3:11)

How about you? Are you a true child of Abraham, putting your trust in Jesus? Or are you still trying to make yourself right before God by your own efforts?

No one can truly say they are saved if they can’t truly trust God for their salvation and insist on trusting their own efforts or qualifications.

Who or what are you trusting in for your salvation?