Who’s Your Daddy?

My middle daughter baked a jello cake today.  They are so delicious and moist.  After supper, she took out the cake and began slicing it for us.

“Can I take a piece to Dora?” she asked.

Dora is the sweet, white-haired, 70 something who lives across the road from us.

“Sure.”  As if my kids need permission to do something nice for someone.

I watched her cross the road and then returned to my dish washing.  When she came in she said Dora looked so happy to get a surprise piece of cake and said she was going to “eat it right away”.

While she was gone, I was wondering if people attribute the kindness of my girls at least in part to me (or Bob) and how we’re raising them.  “That Christi, she is such a good mom.”

Made me think about the partial scripture I used in a prior post, The Gray-Haired.

This time I’m going to share it in its entirety.

“For as many as are led by the Spirit of God, these are the sons of God.

“For you did not receive the spirit of bondage again to fear, but you received the Spirit of adoption by whom we cry out, ‘Abba, Father’.

“The Spirit Himself bears witness with our spirit that we are children of God, and if children, then heirs–heirs of God and joint heirs with Christ, if indeed we suffer with Him, that we may also be glorified together.”  Romans 8:13-17

There are certain criteria for being  children of God.  They:

Live by the Spirit, are led by the Spirit, have witness by the Spirit that they are God’s children, and they suffer with Him.

That last one is no fun.  Most of my suffering has come in the form of rejection.  I remember a particularly trying time when the rejection of someone close was repetitive to the point of madness.  I kept wondering what was wrong with me.  That’s when this scripture was highlighted to me and I realized nothing is wrong with me, I am normal by God’s standards.

“If the world hates you, you know that it hated Me before it hated you.  If you were of the world, the world would love its own.  Yet because you are not of the world, but I chose you out of the world, therefore the world hates you.” John 15:18,19

Fun stuff (sarcasm), yet ironically uplifting (honestly).  Jesus knows.  He was treated the same way for no good reason, just because He was righteous and chosen–which is what we can all be if we so choose.

We live our lives below God’s standards if it’s all rejection, though.  We were made for so much more than that.  Jesus was our model.  He laid down His divinity to become one of us to show us how to live as children of God.

“Most assuredly, I say to you, the Son can do nothing of Himself, but what He sees the Father do; for whatever He does, the Son also does in like manner.”  John 5:19

“Most assuredly, I say to you, he who believes in Me, the works that I do he will do also; and greater works than these will he do because I go to My Father.”  John 14:12

What did Jesus do?  Preached the Good News, set people free from bondage, healed the sick, made the broken whole on every level, and raised the dead.

It’s true, I don’t always look like Him and I am not seeing the great manifestations in my life that Jesus had in His.  But I feel I’ve had an incredible growth spurt in the last 2 years.  And even though I am not yet seeing what I am believing for, I know that I will because I have seen what the Father is doing and I am willing to let Him do it through me, just like Jesus did.  How ’bout you?  Who’s your daddy?  If you answered God, do you look like Him?  To know what He looks like, remember the example Jesus set for us.  He was the very image of His Father which was hope, joy, peace and love personified.  Join me this New Year by giving our best effort to present the face and hands of our Father to a lost and dying world.

Click here to check out No Longer Slaves.  Let the words become alive in you.

I’m no longer a slave to fear

I am a child of God.

I’ve been born again, into a family

Your blood flows through my veins…

We’ve been liberated from bondage…

I AM A CHILD OF GOD….

I AM A CHILD OF GOD.  Are you?  Let’s unashamedly live like it in 2019.