Day Fifteen: Formed for God's Family

What hit home for you in the reading today?

I needed the reminder that God is love and he treasures relationships. This also prompts to consider what kind of father God is to me. This then causes me to re-evaluate what kind of father I am to my children. Am I a father of love, do I treasure my relationships with my children? What would I point to as proof? Fortunately I think there is plenty of proof that I'm a good dad, and there's plenty of proof that God is a good Father.

There is a difference though: I'm a seen and present dad to my four kids running around my house; God is an unseen yet present father to children milling about the earth. Because we can't see God, it can be easy for us to discount the kind of fatherly influence he can have on us. God as our father can influence us in many ways, if we let him. The yearning is there to see God, and that day will come - in the meantime, we let him be a father to us, teaching us how to grow up and love.

It's vital to know and understand the role of Jesus Christ when it comes to our relationship to God. In order for us to enjoy God as our Father, we must hear the words of Jesus - he is our only way of knowing what God is like and what god wants from us. To know God as our father, we must accept what Jesus reveals to us as truth, as reality, as the best way forward. If you want to know what God our Father is really like, absorb the story of Jesus and his relationship with God as his Father.

Every human being was created by God, but not everyone is a child of God. The only way to get into God's family is by being born again into it. You became part of the human family by your first birth, but you become a member of God's family by your second birth. God "has given us the privilege of being born again, so that we are now members of God's own family."

The invitation to be part of God's family is universal, but there is one condition: faith in Jesus. The Bible says, "You are all children of God through faith in Christ Jesus."

Whatever your relationship on earth is like with your dad, we must "start over" with our relationship with God as our Father. Every dad on earth wounds his children, no dad is perfect. But God our Father always gets it right, and Jesus helps us to begin to understand what this new relationship can be like on earth and for eternity. Let Jesus teach you how to enjoy your relationship as a son or daughter of God. And then let God our Father help you forgive and love your dad, let God as your Father teach you how to love and lead others, let God the Father be with and influence you even when you can't see him.