God the Father

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Who Does God Say That I Am?

woman shaped by PotterGod alone has the right to bestow my identity because “It is he who has made [me] and [I am] his” (Ps. 100:3). I am His creation (Gen. 1:27). All people were created in God’s image, not the image of animals. God is holy, not sexual, sensual, or captive to instincts. God says, “You shall be holy, for I am holy” (1 Pet. 1:16).

But the Fall into sin introduced horrible corruption to the human race, so that now the thoughts and desires of people are sinful and centered on serving the self (Gen. 6:5; Eph. 2:3). Christians, however, have been given the Holy Spirit who begins in them a “new creation” (2 Cor. 5:17; Gal. 6:15), and starts to re-form the image of God in them (Col. 3:10). All of us struggle with our sinful human nature because we are sons of Adam and daughters of Eve, but we are not bound to that human nature because of the washing and renewal of our Baptism (Tit. 3:5-8). In my Baptism, Jesus Christ restored my identity as an “heir” of eternal life. I am strengthened to “abstain from the passions of the flesh, which wage war against [my] soul” (1 Pet. 2:11). Re-creation in Christ makes me God’s adopted child who is invited to cry “Abba! Father!” (Rom. 8:15).

My body is “a temple of the Holy Spirit” bought at great price (1 Cor. 6:19). I am a treasure of God for whom Jesus gave all He had. In Christ crucified, I reclaim my identity. Since Jesus is holy, God declares me holy through faith in Him. “I have called you by name,” God says. “You are mine” (Isa. 43:1). “‘I will be a father to you, and you shall be sons and daughters to me,’ says the Lord Almighty” (2 Cor. 6:18). Jesus spoke to my full person and human identity when He said, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength” (Mk. 12:30).

I hold to a body-soul anthropology or understanding of the origin, nature and destiny of mankind as expressed in the Athanasian Creed. I believe I will be resurrected, not as a disembodied spirit, but with a perfect body joined with a perfect soul. In heaven, I will not be an angel but my resurrected body will be like that of angels (Matt. 22:30). I will neither marry nor be given in marriage. This is a sound argument against the idea that human beings are fundamentally “sexual”. If that were true, in the resurrection I would be somehow less than human.

Adapted from
The Failure of Sex Education in the Church:
Mistaken Identity, Compromised Purity
by Linda Bartlett (Amazon)

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Choices Affect Our Attitude Toward God

1900s girlsHere are more pearls from my grandmother’s book.  (Once again, truth has a way of deflating the progressive thinker’s much inflated balloon.)

In What a Young Woman Ought to Know, Mrs. Mary Wood-Allen, M.D., writes that we are not only body and mind, but spirit (or soul).  Whether we’ve thought about this or not, the fact remains.  “No failure to recognize God as your Father changes His relationship to you.  No conduct of yours can make you any less His child.”

“Well,” you may say, “if that is so, what does it matter, then, what I do?  If disobedience or sin cannot make me less God’s child, why should I be good and obedient?”  Because… “your conduct changes your attitude toward Him.”

“The most worthy and dignified thing we can do,” wrote Dr. Wood-Allen, “is to recognize ourselves as God’s children and be obedient.  It is a wonderful glory to be a child of God . . . even the most ignorant or degraded have . . . divine possibilities.”

My grandmother’s choices and behavior evidenced that she was in a merciful relationship with her Heavenly Father.  And, no matter what anyone else thought of her, she knew she had “divine possibilities” because she was a child of God.

This woman physician from the late 1800s continues, “Being children of God puts on us certain obligations towards Him, but it also puts on God certain obligations towards us.  ‘What!’ you say: ‘God the Infinite under obligations to man, the finite?  The Creator under obligations to the created?’  Oh, yes.”

Human parents are under obligation to care for, protect, educate and give opportunities to their children.  In a similar way, God is obligated to do the same for His children.  The difference is, He fulfills these obligations perfectly.  All our earthly blessings are from Him.  Every good thing we have is a gift of love from our Creator and Heavenly Father.

Our life matters to God.  And, why wouldn’t it?  He created it!  He sent His Son, Jesus, to die for it!  And, as Dr. Mary Wood-Allen observes, “God takes such minute care of us that if for one second of time He would forget us, we should be annihilated.”  What does that say to you?  I know what it says to me.  And it pulls me down on my knees in humble, speechless gratitude.

But, if God is truly taking care of us, why does He allow failures, hardships and worries?  Sometimes, the things we call hard and cruel are actually little tumbles on our way to learning to walk.  A trial or difficulty in the school of life may be God’s way of opening our eyes to see that we need Him and can trust Him.

Our choices affect our attitude toward God.  The most dignified thing we can do is to recognize ourselves as God’s children and try to do those things that bring glory to Him.

It is a wondrous thing to be called a child of God.  It means we are heirs of God’s wisdom, strength, and glory.  It means that when we fail to trust and obey Him, we are still God’s child because of what Jesus did for us (Galatians 4:4-7).   Only a personal question remains:

As a child of God, how shall I choose to live?

First posted 2-9-2011 in Ezerwoman