Children of God
“In one sense, all people are “children of God,” because every single human being is created by God in His image. This was also a common term for the Israelites of the Old Covenant. It is clear from John 1:12, however, that there is now, in the New Covenant, a new requirement in order to become a child of God. This no longer happens automatically by being born as a human being, or by being born as a Jew, but by receiving the Logos Incarnate through faith and baptism (cf. John 3:5). And so the Church becomes the New Israel, and the New Israel is a new humanity, because of the new, “zōē” life—the eternal, divine life that Christ brings—which is open to all people who receive Him and believe on His name.” (Dr. Mary S. Ford)
“For St. Paul faith is a far more important category than is ancestry or genetics. Those who are children of God are not so because they are descendants of Adam or Israel, but because they share in Abraham’s faith. So, believers don’t need to worry themselves about their connection to Adam, but only need to be children of Abraham by sharing in his faith in God and faithfulness to God. We are to be people of faith not just descendants of the first human or of Israel according to the flesh (Romans 9:6-7; Galatians 4:21-31); so for believers Abraham is our ancestral father rather than Adam. All the concerns about the literal meaning of Genesis 2 and 3, are really not that significant in Paul’s thinking as it is far more important to be a child of Abraham, a believer rather than to be a child of the flesh.” (Fr. Ted Bobosh)
“Our identity is something other than what we commonly think about: Beloved, now we are children of God; and it has not yet been revealed what we shall be, but we know that when He is revealed, we shall be like Him, for we shall see Him as He is. (1Jo 3:2) And To him who overcomes I will give some of the hidden manna to eat. And I will give him a white stone, and on the stone a new name written which no one knows except him who receives it.”‘ (Rev 2:17) This “identity” is not unconnected with what we now think of as our self. But it is the self-resurrected, transformed. That “self” is constantly being born through the work of Christ within us. It is not the improvement of our present self, a “moral project.” For the process is not one of improvement but of life from the dead. The old dies and the new is reborn. So that the Christian life is not one of learning how to “behave” ourselves as Christians. The Christian life is the learning of how to put the “old self to death.” (Father Stephen Freeman)
“…we receive the light of Christ in our hearts by living according to the Light, as children of God, according to the values and virtues of the Kingdom of God, according to His commandments, which are lights that guide us. We live in the light of the resurrection by living as peacemakers (James 3;18), nurturing forgiveness (Matthew 6:12-16), learning to love (Matthew 22:35-40; I Corinthians 13:3), being slow to anger and quick to listen (James 1:19), hungering and thirsting after righteousness (Matthew 5:6), being patient, kind, longsuffering, gentle (I Corinthians 13:4)—OK, that doesn’t sound much like mealtime at my home. That’s because we are still working towards this goal—or rather—Christ is still working towards this goal in us as we walk in the light of His resurrection.As we receive Christ into our hearts, by striving to live as Children of God in our homes, we experience that warmth and peace in our homes that comes from the Light of Christ…” (Dr. Philip Mamalakis)
“Although we can never be children again, Jesus is calling us to cultivate childlike qualities in our relationship with God…children experience the presence of God as a natural part of their lives. Sometimes as adults, we intellectualize our faith. Children, on the other hand, have the ability to perceive without understanding, to feel without analyzing.” (Fr. Alexander Goussetis)
“Human beings are created and saved to be the children of God, sons and daughters of the Father in Christ the only Son, by the indwelling Holy Spirit.” (OCA Synod)
“In a world so consumed and fixated with worldly pleasures and riddled with secularism, it has become dangerously easy for the Christian to lose touch with his identity as a child of God and to forget who he is and why he lives. Each day we are bombarded by forces that smother the Spirit in us and attempt to strangle the life of Christ in us. This is a process that happens very subtly, without us hardly even noticing it…Perhaps the greatest danger to the Christian living in the world today is to allow that gradual process to take hold in his or her life, in which we gradually become less mindful of the things of the Spirit…” (Father Joshua Makoul)
“The word 'deny' might just be the most hated four letter word in our society… we are taught to deny ourselves of nothing…Our modern age encourages us to deny God and to focus solely on ourselves - for we are led to falsely believing that we are in charge - while Christ reverses this and tells us to deny ourselves and to focus solely on Him…We are to deny ourselves from our passions, temptations, and anything that will deter us from being close to God. To leave behind our selfish ways and to empty ourselves, so that God's will may abide in and work through us…it is God's will that truly fulfills our lives. To deny ourselves is not to lose our uniqueness as individuals, rather it is to reach our full potential as children of God.” (Father Andrew Georganas)
“God wants us to have emotional and spiritual riches…Emotional riches are acquired by learning to love your neighbor and by serving your neighbor with a servant’s heart. Spiritual riches come from loving God and recognizing that you are a child of God, who loves God as a Father, who trusts God as a child trusts his father.” (Fr. Stavros N. Akrotirianakis)
“There is nothing accidental in the life of an obedient child of God…Nothing can happen to a child of God outside the will of God.” (Paul Billheimer, Jill Briscoe)