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Key Bible Verse: For all who areled by the Spiritof God are sonsof God. (Romans 8:14), ESV Dig Deeper: Romans 8:14-17; Ephesians 1:1-8

I grew up [near] the site of Mills Home Orphanage. This Southern Baptist-operated children's home had an idyllic campus. Some of my best friends in school were young men who lived there. My parents would frequently invite one of them to spend the weekend with us.

Sometimes, as we would drive one of the boys back to the Mills Home campus, I would feel a little jealousy. My eyes danced across the ball fields, all the way to the Olympic-sized swimming pool. I thought this was about as close to heaven as a child could ever want to be. But when I once expressed this jealous thought to one of my orphan friends, he quickly replied that he would gladly trade it all for one thing. "For what?" I asked.

"A dad who loves me."

We do indeed have a heavenly Father who loves us—a distinctive privilege of sonship, which Paul immediately contrasted [in the verse following today's Key Bible Verse] with the "spirit of slavery." Slavery (then as now) always leads to bondage and fear. Sonship, however, enables us to address God personally. As children of God, we have been given the privilege of intimate daily access to the Father.

—Ken Hemphill in We Are

My Response: I will thank God for adopting me as his son; I will reflect on what it means to call him my heavenly Father.

Thought to Apply: It is God's will that we see him as the Father, and the great fountain and reservoir of all grace and love. This is what Christ came to reveal.—John Owen (theologian)

Adapted from We Are (B&H, 2006)

Copyright © 2010 by the author or Christianity Today/Men of Integrity magazine.
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Prayer for the Week

Dear Father, help me to reflect on your love this week so that I might not only rediscover your love for me but also your great love for each and every person on the planet.

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