Daily Reading: Ephesians 1:4-5:
“Even before he made the world, God loved us and chose us in Christ to be holy and without fault in his eyes. He predestined us for adoption to sonship through Jesus Christ, in accordance with his pleasure and will.”
The love that John has in view in 1 John 3:1 is not the love that merely takes care of paper work and adopts. That would be amazing to simply be adopted into God’s family as Paul describes. However, God does not only adopt you. He moves in, by his Spirit, and imparts something of Himself to us, so that we take on a family resemblance (1 John 3:9). If you are a child of God Paul is right, you are so by adoption, but more than adoption, by new birth (1 John 5:1).
God chose you to be in Christ so that you are holy and without fault in His eyes (Ephesians 1:4). God is in relationship with you as your Father forever so your relationship status with God is not complicated.
Jesus came to this earth to reveal just one name about God, Father (John 17:6). There is power in relating to God as your Father. Because knowing God as your daddy changes the dynamic and your perspective on things you encounter in this life.
This is huge- because the way you relate to God makes a big difference. An old covenant emphasis on rules will cause you to view God as a bookkeeper recording all your sins and a judge condemning your failures. But Jesus says, “God is not like that! He’s your heavenly Father who loves you and holds nothing against you. For everything that Christ taught, everything that makes the New Testament new, and better than the Old, is summed up in the knowledge of the Fatherhood of God.
The enemy wants you to doubt God’s love for you. The enemy wants you to believe that God might abandoned you based upon sin. Or that God might punish you to get you to straighten up and fly right. Sin has consequences. Sin harms us and has a negative impact on others, but God’s righteous judgment and His wrath for our sins was satisfied at the cross.
The point of the parable of Luke 11 is see God for who He is in relationship to you which is that He is our Father. Because Father is the theme that permeates Luke 11. So, when you think of a good dad who would never do anything to harm the children He loves, how much more will the perfect Heavenly Father give perfectly to us.