It is important to recognize that it is only a child that can rightfully call someone their father. It is only a true child that can trust the care and love and concern of a father. Simply thinking, treating, or calling someone 'father' doesn’t mean they will treat you like their child.
Unfortunately, in reality we start life lost, abandoned, broken, and lonely -- orphans without a father. For as long as that is true, all of the truths of God being our Father are merely the dreams of a desperate orphan – it is not reality!
It is only through Jesus that we are given any right or opportunity to call God ‘our Father’. Jesus makes a way for us to be adopted into the family of God. This He accomplished by purchasing [redemption] our adoption at the cost of His life. Paul explains this in Galatians 4:4-5.
Unfortunately, in reality we start life lost, abandoned, broken, and lonely -- orphans without a father. For as long as that is true, all of the truths of God being our Father are merely the dreams of a desperate orphan – it is not reality!
It is only through Jesus that we are given any right or opportunity to call God ‘our Father’. Jesus makes a way for us to be adopted into the family of God. This He accomplished by purchasing [redemption] our adoption at the cost of His life. Paul explains this in Galatians 4:4-5.
“When the fullness of time had come, God sent forth His Son, born of a woman, born under the law, to redeem [buy back] those who were under the law, so that we might receive adoption as sons."
It is only when we come to God through Jesus, believing and accepting how Jesus changes us, that we can truly approach God as our Father. Otherwise we have no right to call God ‘Father’; we have no basis to rest on his love, concern and care.
But once we have been adopted into God’s family, Paul goes on to say in vs 6,
But once we have been adopted into God’s family, Paul goes on to say in vs 6,
"And because you are sons [adopted through Jesus], God has sent the Spirit of his Son into our hearts, crying, ‘Abba! Father!’ [in other words, ‘Daddy’] So you are no longer a slave, but a son, and if a son, then an heir through God.”
Once Jesus makes us children of God, everything changes.
For instance, there is a vast difference between approaching God as a slave might approach a master, begging for attention, hoping for care, dreaming of love – compared with approaching God as a son or daughter might approach their loving father.
John Wesley came to this deep realization. For many years he was tormented and afraid. He wrestled and struggled with his fears and rejection, desperately trying to please God and earn the right to approach God and be loved by God.
Then, something changed.
It was May 24th 1738, at a meeting at Aldersgate-Street in London, when Wesley trusted Jesus alone for his salvation. His diary entry says he, ‘felt his heart strangely warmed’.
For instance, there is a vast difference between approaching God as a slave might approach a master, begging for attention, hoping for care, dreaming of love – compared with approaching God as a son or daughter might approach their loving father.
John Wesley came to this deep realization. For many years he was tormented and afraid. He wrestled and struggled with his fears and rejection, desperately trying to please God and earn the right to approach God and be loved by God.
Then, something changed.
It was May 24th 1738, at a meeting at Aldersgate-Street in London, when Wesley trusted Jesus alone for his salvation. His diary entry says he, ‘felt his heart strangely warmed’.
"In the evening I went very unwillingly to a society in Aldersgate-Street, where one was reading Luther's preface to the Epistle to the Romans. About a quarter before nine, while he was describing the change which God works in the heart through fatih in Christ, I felt my heart strangely warmed. I felt I did trust in Christ, Christ alone for salvation: And an assurance was given me, that he had taken away my sins, even mine, and saved me from the law of sin and death."
Years later Wesley would write that he had learned the difference between the faith of a slave and the faith of a son.
QUESTIONS TO ASK YOURSELF
- In 1 Timothy 1:15-16 Paul briefly rehearses the difference Jesus made in his life. Take a moment to rehearse your journey to becoming a child of God.
- What part of your 'journey to adoption' leads you to especially thank God (e.g. is there a particular person, moment, experience)?
- What is the difference between approaching God as a slave vs approaching Him as a 'son'?