Here 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?
One could also, perhaps, put it this way: our attitude toward God affects our choices. Luther talks in the Large Catechism about the relationship between the 1st commandment and all the others. If the head is right, then the body will follow. If we truly “fear, love, and trust in God above all things,” then our “choices” in other commandments will follow suit. It is because we lack true fear and love of God that we make poor choices.
Peter Kreeft, a renowned ethicist and writer, talks about how humility before God is essential to making the right decisions in our behavior. If we are truly humble before God, and remember that all we do is “in his presence,” this will affect how we act. This is a pretty broad summary of his excellent writing and may not completely do a good job. But the idea is, if our attitude towards God is right, then the rest will follow. I think Jesus said something about this, “Seek first the Kingdom of God and his righteousness…”
Thank you, Pastor Beisel, for pointing out how our identity as creations of God and treasures of Christ works two ways.
Like you, I first think of how knowing and trusting God (and our identity from Him and in Christ) affects our choices. But, the author of my grandmother’s book brought to my attention something I hadn’t considered. If we choose to “sleep around,” live together outside marriage, intentionally put our health at risk, choose abortion, and then — after all that — doubt that God could ever love or forgive us, then our lifestyle reveals that we don’t see and trust Him as our Father… or we don’t care. Such cold attitude toward God places our souls in danger.
I fear that in Babylon, too many have forgotten whose they are. May the Spirit use us to tenderly lead children back to their Father.