Children of God

On Sunday we were challenged from the pulpit to identify who we are. Clipboards were passed during the sermon among the congregation. The membership anonymously wrote down who they thought they thought they were. It was obvious that many had allowed others to define them. I heard husbands and wives whispering about what to write. I saw answers that reflected secular occupations.
I read the list on the clip board that came to me before adding my thoughts.

I found myself writing things that made me look good; things that I really want to be in Christ as a child of God. I wrote nothing about the more negative aspects of who I am. It was not a well rounded picture. I would not call it dishonest. I simply omitted some things that may have rounded out the truth of who I am. In my faith walk, I like to think I am both a writer and teacher and good at both; that I serve my students as Jesus would have me do. These are things I enjoy doing at church. I have really not thought about serving in any other capacity.

What I really am though, is a child of God. Indeed, all of us that believe, that have received Christ and partake of His Spirit, are the children of God. We are not His genetic heirs. We are His by adoption. In the Gospel of John 1:12-13, John says,  "Yet to all who did receive him, to those who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God ^__ children born not of natural descent, nor of human decision or a husband’s will, but born of God."

This is the only time in scripture that God actually gives a right to His creations. Despite the circumlocutions of 18th century enlightenment rationalists, God never gives rights to us. He has always given us an outline of our responsibilities to Him, to family and to our neighbors, but never a list of rights. The only right that we, as believers, enjoy is the right to become His children and His heirs. Any other rights we may possess, we have taken for ourselves and usually at a high cost. 

God charges us nothing except our faith. He freely gives us membership in His family if we believe and a right to inherit the things His Son has secured for us. 

So what does it mean to be a child of God? How can you identify the children of God?

In 1 John 3:9-10, John says,  

^"No one who is born of God will continue to sin, because God’s seed remains in them; they cannot go on sinning, because they have been born of God. ¹⁰ 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 God’s child, nor is anyone who does not love their brother and sister."

Really? No one who is born of God will continue to sin? I am either taking this out of context and it means something other than what I am plainly reading or...or John is deadly serious here.

I confess to sinning frequently, for failing to live up to God's standard. My mind and my heart go places where no man should go. I get angry. I sometimes covet. I lust. I desire things not intended for me. I am proud and arrogant and sometimes conceited.

Really John? Are you saying I am not born of God then? I confess that this confuses me. He says it again in chapter 5, vss 18-20 of his epistle.

  ¹⁸ We know that anyone born of God does not continue to sin; the One who was born of God keeps them safe, and the evil one cannot harm them. ¹⁹ We know that we are children of God, and that the whole world is under the control of the evil one. ²⁰ We know also that the Son of God has come and has given us understanding, so that we may know him who is true. And we are in him who is true by being in his Son Jesus Christ. He is the true God and eternal life.

I suppose we have to put John's words here into perspective with the rest of the New Testament.
Paul says of himself in Romans 7:14-24:

 ¹⁴ We know that the law is spiritual; but I am unspiritual, sold as a slave to sin. ¹⁵ I do not understand what I do. For what I want to do I do not do, but what I hate I do. ¹⁶ And if I do what I do not want to do, I agree that the law is good. ¹⁷ As it is, it is no longer I myself who do it, but it is sin living in me. ¹⁸ For I know that good itself does not dwell in me, that is, in my sinful nature.^[c] For I have the desire to do what is good, but I cannot carry it out. ¹⁹ For I do not do the good I want to do, but the evil I do not want to do—this I keep on doing. ²⁰ Now if I do what I do not want to do, it is no longer I who do it, but it is sin living in me that does it.
²¹ So I find this law at work: Although I want to do good, evil is right there with me. ²² For in my inner being I delight in God’s law; ²³ but I see another law at work in me, waging war against the law of my mind and making me a prisoner of the law of sin at work within me. ²⁴ What a wretched man I am! Who will rescue me from this body that is subject to death? ²⁵ Thanks be to God, who delivers me through Jesus Christ our Lord!

And then again in Romans 8:14-17:

 ¹⁴ For those who are led by the Spirit of God are the children of God. ¹⁵ The Spirit you received does not make you slaves, so that you live in fear again; rather, the Spirit you received brought about your adoption to sonship.^[f] And by him we cry, “Abba,^[g] Father.” ¹⁶ The Spirit himself testifies with our spirit that we are God’s children. ¹⁷ Now if we are children, then we are heirs—heirs of God and co-heirs with Christ, if indeed we share in his sufferings in order that we may also share in his glory.

So what I am getting here is that while the children of God are not supposed to sin, we do sin and it is only through our spiritual connection to our adoptive Parent, that we are forgiven of it and eventually overcome it. The technical term is sanctification. It takes a lifetime and most are seldom perfect when they die, but it does just keep on getting better. I suppose it might be that by the time we are old, we are just too tired to sin :). Whatever. If it works, I'm good with that.

If John was perfect when he died, if he did not sin, I can accept that, but I am skeptical. I think rather that his real meaning is alluding me.

I know this John. My God is with me. My spirit cries out to Him daily, even hourly and even when I fail and sin anyway. I also know that I am His child. It is the greatest and best thing that I have ever had. I know that my sin urges endanger that status, but I also know He is right here with me; that Jesus has paid the price for my failures.

Lord, thank You for this right You have given to those of us that believe. Lord I pray that You empower me and Your other children to stand against the flesh and live for You. We long for the Day when You arrive. We want to see Your smiling face. Please help us to get there. In Your Name...
Amen

1 John 3:19-24

¹⁹ This is how we know that we belong to the truth and how we set our hearts at rest in his presence: ²⁰ If our hearts condemn us, we know that God is greater than our hearts, and he knows everything. ²¹ Dear friends, if our hearts do not condemn us, we have confidence before God ²² and receive from him anything we ask, because we keep his commands and do what pleases him. ²³ And this is his command: to believe in the name of his Son, Jesus Christ, and to love one another as he commanded us. ²⁴ The one who keeps God’s commands lives 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.

Perhaps the answer is here.