December 8 – Whose You Are (Galatians 3:26-4:7)

“You are all sons of God through faith in Christ Jesus.”
(Galatians 3:26)

IN WORD:
Perhaps we take our identity as God’s children a little too casually. After all, the world uses the term “God’s children” for everyone He created. The Bible affirms that God created everyone and everything; but it reserves the status of a child for those who have been born of His Spirit. We are His children because He has fathered us Himself.
That’s different from being His servant, His disciple, or His follower. Children should obey their fathers, but they aren’t defined by their obedience. Children should accept their father’s values, but they aren’t defined by their behavior. So how are children different? Children are defined by parental genes, and those genes will cause them to resemble their father. They are children because of whom they are born to, not because of whom they can make themselves out to be.
That should be a relaxing thought for those who have in fact been born again. All of our striving for Christlikeness, while admirable and important, doesn’t define us. Neither do our failures. No, we are defined by the Spirit who raised us up and called us God’s own children. Even the faith that completed the transaction was a gift (Ephesians 2:8). We are not self-made Christians. We are God-made children.

IN DEED:
In a culture that defines us by what we do or how we think, it’s easy to fall into the identity trap of believing that we are shaped by our past. But you are not shaped by your history, contrary to what the psychiatrists have preached. You are shaped by your destiny. You are a child of God with an eternal inheritance.
What does that mean in practical terms? It means that we need not strive after false comforts; every meaningful resource of heaven and earth is part of our future inheritance. It means that we need not fill our lives with meaning apart from God; we have all the meaning a person could ever need. And it means that we need not suffer from low self-esteem. Is there any higher esteem than being a child of the highest Being there is?

“God His own doth tend and nourish; in His holy courts they flourish.” -Caroline Sandell-berg-