But to all who did receive him, who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God. Who were born not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God.
– John 1:12–13
Oh, I am just as I read this verse in a fresh way, almost like it’s first time in thinking about it.
John 1:12–13 Reminds Us We Were Ransomed
The reality that in Christ for all who receive Christ to believe in his name, we are children of God. We’re born spiritually, not of blood or the will of the flesh or the will of man, but born of God.
And makes me think about my favorite quote, well, one of my favorite quotes from one of my favorite books by J.I. Packer, Knowing God. And in that book, he’s got an incredible chapter on adoption and he says, “What is a Christian? The richest answer I know is that a Christian is one who has God as father. If you want to know how well a person understands Christianity,” Packer writes, “Find out how much he or she makes of the thought of being God’s child and having God as father. If this is not the thought that prompts and controls their worship and prayers and their whole outlook on life, it means they do not understand Christianity very well at all.”
Is this what prompts and controls your praying and your worshiping and your whole outlook on life? The fact that you are God’s child, that he is your father? Oh, rest in this reality today, be reminded of this glorious truth that for all who believe in Jesus, you know God as father. You have the right to come to God today as his child, as his son, as his daughter.
John 1:12–13 Sparks Adoration in Us for God the Father
So pray and worship and live out of the overflow of this God. We praise you as our Father, our Father in heaven. All glory be to your name for giving us new life, for causing us by your spirit to be born again, that we might be your children. Even as I think about this last week and our church family and we were just talking about how we are from so many different places in the world, but we have the same father. We have the same bloodline in your son Jesus. We praise you for the privilege of being your children.
God, we pray that today you would help us to live in light of this reality. God help us to walk with you as our Father, to seek you as our Father, to pray, to worship, to love you as our Father, to obey you as our Father, to reflect you. We as your children want to be a reflection of who you are today.
Help us to show others who you are by the way we live, and help us to introduce others to you. We have an opportunity on God to bring people in your family today. God, help us to be faithful, to share the gospel so that people around us today might become part of the family. God may it be so. Bring somebody into the family through us today and bring all the families of the Earth into the family we pray.
Praying for the Siwa Berber People
We pray for the Siwa Berber people of Egypt that live in this remote, arid desert location in the far west of Egypt, close to the Libyan border. God, we pray, bring them into the family. We know Jesus you’ve paid the price for the sins of every nation, tribe, language, and people to be brought into the family. Bring in the Siwa Berber people we pray. And we pray for any brothers and sisters who are there right now that you would strengthen them and give them boldness in sharing the gospel and making disciples and planting churches. God, we pray this to you as our Father in heaven with joy in our hearts before You, with love in our hearts before you. In Jesus name, amen.
David Platt serves as a Lead Pastor for McLean Bible Church. He is also the Founder of Radical, an organization that helps people follow Jesus and make him known in their neighborhood and all nations.
David received his B.A. from the University of Georgia and M.Div., Th.M., and Ph.D. from New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary. Some of his published works include Radical, Radical Together, Follow Me, Counter Culture, Something Needs to Change, and Don’t Hold Back.
He lives in the Washington, D.C. metro area with his wife and children.
