No matter your background, no matter your former way of living – God the Father receives all whose faith is in His Son…the Lord Jesus Christ.  He welcomes all, loves all and has compassion on all who believe His Son to be their Savior.  The wise and loving God of the Holy Bible (Old and New Testament) welcomes all who turn to Him in repentance and receive His Son as Savior.  Then, because He is the wise and compassionate Father, He disciplines us for our good.

Are you counted as one of His beloved children?

Earthly fathers discipline their children out of care and concern for them to grow and mature into men and women of worth.  So does our God, our Father Who is in heaven.

God reminds His children that He disciplines and reproves us because we are His children.  God’s discipline is not to harm or hurt us…it is for our good.  His discipline matures us.  We are to be teachable.

If you are not disciplined by the living God, then you are an illegitimate child.  God is not your Father.

Great men and women of the Holy Bible were teachable under God’s discipline.  Was it easy for them?  I don’t think so.  However, they did learn to obey God’s words.

  Followers of Christ are adopted by God the Father through faith in His Son – the only begotten Son of God.

Illegitimate children are not sons and daughters of the living God.  Such children reject, refuse God’s way through faith in Jesus.  They are not children of God.

God’s children – we are to be obedient and teachable and learn from God’s discipline.

God the Father’s children:
(NASB) John 8:42 “Jesus said to them, ‘If God were your Father, you would love Me, for I proceeded forth and have come from God, for I have not even come on My own initiative, but He (God the Father) sent Me.’”

Is the devil your father? Jesus said the following…
(NASB) John 8:44 “You are of your father the devil, and you want to do the desires of your father.  He was a murderer from the beginning, and does not stand in the truth because there is no truth in him.  Whenever he speaks a lie, he speaks from his own nature, for he is a liar and the father of lies.”

Take it to heart ~

Who is your spiritual Father?  Is God the Father, the God of the Holy Bible, your Father?  He is – if your faith is in His only begotten Son.