Living as children of God

by Marcelo Brandão·July 04, 2019·4 min read

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Days ago I had the privilege of being invited to preach in a church whose denomination was totally different from what I am accustomed to. On this day, I felt God leading me to say something about identity. To be clearer, I began to meditate on how much the power of God is only manifested in who is His child.

You may be saying now, “we are all children of God”. And in fact, the confession of our sins as well as the surrender of our lives to Jesus gives us the right to be called children.

Jo 1:12 “But as many as received him, to them he gave power to become the sons of God, even to them that believe in his name”

The fact that I want to pay attention to, however, is not what we call the children of God. But to act like.

Behavior change

We know that our salvation comes through repentance of our sins. We also understand that repentance is the change of the world’s behavior towards an alignment of our culture with the culture of the kingdom of the heavens.

Which leads us to think that. If we do not change our behavior. If we continue to live in darkness, we do not act as children of light, we are children of darkness and we are not repentant. We have no part with Him.

1Jo 3:6 “Whosoever abideth in him sinneth not: but whosoever sinneth hath not seen him, nor known him.”

(The practice of sin without transformation and change shows that we have not yet met the Father)

(7) Little children, do not be deceived by anyone. He that doeth righteousness is righteous, even as he is righteous. (8) He who practices without proceeds from the devil, for the devil has sinned from the beginning. For this the Son of God was manifested: to destroy the works of the devil. (9) Everyone who is born of God does not live in the practice of sin, because in him the divine seed remains; he can not live sinning, because he is born of God. In this the sounds of God and the children of the devil are made manifest: everyone who does not of righteousness does not come from God, and the same is true for him who does not love his brother”.

So that if in our life there is the practice of justice in the first place. And conscious without continuing to occur frequently, we do not act as children of God, nor do we attribute to this title the real importance it has.

The purpose

I do not write these things for the brothers to grieve. I do this by asking the Holy Spirit to convince us every day that there is no point in wearing masks of “good Christians” a few times a week without there being in us a desire and an effort to sanctify ourselves every day. In order to reach the stature of the firstborn son. Of the first among many brethren, Jesus Christ.

In the midst of everything we experience every day, be it in the world or in the church, we accumulate things in front of our eyes that draw us the focus of God’s chief purpose for man. That is to be children, holy and blameless.

It is! That simple. Man’s greatest purpose is to be like Jesus as a son. What shows us that if He is the light and we are constantly in sin and darkness, we are not in Him!

Transforming us into children

Finally, I hope everyone understands that the transformation of our attitudes so that we are increasingly recognized as children undergo a process. It is a time where we begin to align our thoughts and actions with God’s standards. In this, we leave aside the old man and the sins that were common to us. In a totally rational way. Only in this way can we experience God’s perfect and pleasing will for our lives.

Rom 12:1 “Therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, I pray you to offer your body as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God. This is your rational worship. (2) And do not live according to the standards of this world, but let God transform you by the renewing of the mind, so that you may experience what is the good, pleasing and perfect will of God”.