DL Foundation: Identity // Child of God // "How much more"

Identity // Child of God // “How much more”

God is our Father. We are his children. These two things are at the foundation of our identity as Christians. These truths tackle some of the most important questions we can ask: Who do I say God is? and, Who does he say I am?
 
How we answer those two questions will shape our Christian lives as we live a life pursuing him. It matters what we think about God and it matters what we think He thinks about us. It is important because how we view God will determine how we relate to Him. And who we think He thinks we are will determine how we view ourselves and our worth.
 
If God is our perfect Father then that means he is always for us, not against us. So the things that go wrong in our life can’t be God, because he works for us, not against us! If God is our perfect Father then His love for us is perfect, never ending, never failing. That means when we feel alone, or like we are not known or seen, we can call those things out as lies because our Father’s love is perfect and complete in our time of need.
 
We have access to the Father through Christ because we are His children. Children know their Father, children access their father in ways that others can not. That relationship is steady, constant, and available- always. God gives himself, every part of himself, as Father to pull out our true identities- children. Or, in other words, God gives every bit of Father in Him to pull out every bit of child in us.
 
Jesus makes a statement in Matthew 7:11 that many, if not most, of us know, but few have let impact us the way it should. He says, “If you, then, though you are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father in heaven give good gifts to those who ask him!” We can spend the rest of our lives trying to grasp the significance of those three words - “how much more?” The degree to which God wants to give us more is unmeasurable. I think that is what Paul meant when he talked about the height, depth, length and width of God’s love. Not only is the measure of God’s goodness infinite, it is multi-dimensional. It goes on forever, in all directions. There always more for us to grasp when it comes to how understanding of God’s goodness because there is always more for us to experience.
 
But who is Jesus talking to? Who are these evil men He is bashing on? They are everyday, ordinary guys. They are fathers like mine, your’s, your roommates’, the dad of your childhood friend, and hundreds more. See, it says back in Matthew 5, at the beginning of the section this verse is found in, that Jesus “saw the multitudes” and began to teach them. He isn’t teaching a few “bad dads” that He was calling out. He wasn’t bashing anyone. He was actually exalting someone - the Father. The point of this verse is not to say how bad earthly dads are; it is to say how perfect our heavenly Father is.
 
So, what should we believe about God and ourselves in light of what Jesus said? His good is always more. More than others, more than we expect and more than we could imagine. Even more, it is more than we think we are worth. But, God has said we are worthy of His goodness. His actions towards us don’t just tell us how good He is. They tell us the good He thinks we are worthy of. And if I am going to bet on one thing, it is going to be that what God thinks is right.

We have a Father who is good and He has said that we are worthy of those good things. He has invited us into a relationship where we get to spend our lives discovering that there is no limit to the question “how much more?”