FAMILY-GOD’S
We have
been adopted into God’s family by His Spirit – so that we now possess full
rights as members of the divine family, which means that God now looks upon us
with the same love and affection He looks upon Jesus.
Melvin Tinker
Wisdom to Live By, Christian Focus
Publications, 1998, p. 117. Used by Permission.
You were
cleansed by the same blood, regenerated by the same Spirit. You are a citizen
of the same city, a slave of the same master, a reader of the same Scriptures,
a worshipper of the same God. The same presence dwells silently in you as in
them. Therefore you are committed to them and they to
you. They are your brothers, sisters, your fathers, mothers and children.
Whether you like or dislike them, you belong to them. You have responsibilities
toward them that must be discharged in love. As long as you live on this earth,
you are in their debt. Whether they have done much or little for you, Christ
has done all. He demands that your indebtedness to Him to be transferred to
your new family.
John White
Taken from "The Fight" by John White. Copyright
1976, InterVarsity Christian Fellowship/USA. Used with permission of
InterVarsity Press, P.O. Box 1400, Downers Grove, IL 60515, p. 129-130. www.ivpress.com
My kin are
those who have been bought by the blood of the Lamb. They are my brothers and
my sisters, even if they root for the wrong football team. My calling is to
love them like family, for they are family. They, like me, have been born a
second time, born into the family of God. We share a common Father, we share a
common mother, the church, and we share a common brother, Jesus our Lord.
R.C. Sproul Jr.
We are Family, Tabletalk, March 2007, p. 59. Used by Permission of Ligonier
Ministries.
Nobody is
born into this world a child of the family of God. We are born as children of
wrath. The only way we enter into the family of God is by adoption, and that
adoption occurs when we are united to God’s only begotten Son by faith. When by
faith we are united with Christ, we are then adopted into that family of whom
Christ is the firstborn.
R.C. Sproul
The New Birth, Tabletalk, March 2007, p. 7. Used by
Permission of Ligonier Ministries.
God’s family,
which comes into being by regeneration, is more central and more lasting than
the human family that comes into being by procreation.
John Piper
This
Momentary Marriage – A Parable of Permanence, Desiring God Foundation, 2008, p.
117, www.DesiringGod.org.