God's Children

This week, we’ll continue our series on the Christian home by talking about what it means to be a child of God. Some of us are children, some of us were children, and some of us still act like children! 

The Bible draws of this shared experience we each have to help us understand faith better and to help our faith grow. We are not just people that get a little older as time passes, but we are also meant to be Christians whose faithfulness, holiness, and righteousness is also growing as each day we try to be more like Jesus. We have so many opportunities to sin or obey, to work towards our mission or for self, or to honor God by honoring others. Yet many times, we still find ourselves living in our childishness rather than as children of God.

First of all, I hope we remember that it is a child-like faith that Jesus expects from us. He says as much in Matthew 18:2-3, “He called a little child to him, and placed the child among them. And he said: “Truly I tell you, unless you change and become like little children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven.” He also says in Luke 18:17, “Truly I tell you, anyone who will not receive the kingdom of God like a little child will never enter it.” Therefore, we must, as these children did, trust in Jesus, believe in Jesus, and commit to following him. Children are trusting, brave, and bold. The faith of a child must equally be. 

That is not to say that we must have a blind faith. Children, and you may not know this, but they tend to ask a lot of questions. A lot! So too the “noble Bereans” are praised not for having faith alone but for having the faith to ask questions until their questions are answered. Acts 17:11 tells us their faith led them to “ . . . examine the scriptures daily to see if what Paul said was true.” How’s that for a blind faith?

But the Bible also cautions us concerning our child-like attitude. While our child-like faith is important, what we must avoid is childishness, bickering, selfishness, and tempers. None of these qualities are ones we should retain. In fact, Paul writes “When I was a child, I spake as a child, I understood as a child, I thought as a child: but when I became a man, I put away childish things.” (1 Cor 13:11, KJV). Our faith is to be a growing one that leads to maturity. 

Mature Christians love. They sacrifice. They put others first. They obey. If we are to believe ourselves to be children in God’s household of faith, we must look at our life and spiritually discern whether or not we are being faithful or if we are still being childish.