Children of God

But as many as received Him,

to them He gave the right

to become children of God,

to those who believe in His name:

John 1:12

His own brothers did not believe in Him, at first; they thought he was unbalanced and insane, an embarrassment to their family. One time they wanted Him to do miracles to prove who He was, the next time they wanted Him to come home quietly.

The members of His local church rejected him as unqualified, for they had known Him from His childhood, they knew His family, and they knew He had no formal training as a teacher. When they did ask Him to speak, He made the most outrageous claims and they wanted to stone Him to death.

The multitudes followed Him for bread and miracles, but when His teachings became difficult to understand and implement, all but the twelve left Him and eventually cried out for his crucifixion.

The leaders of His people refused to accept Him for who He was, even though they should have known Him from the Scriptures, because He did not fit their predetermined mold of who they thought He should be and what they thought He should do. With each increasingly demonstrative miracle, they sought to put an end to His life, eventually succeeding only to be surprised when He didn't stay dead.

Some did not receive Him. But some did. Some confessed Him as Lord upon their first meeting and served Him until their dying day. Some received His touch and His teaching, loving and worshiping Him to the very end. Some believed, and in doing so received eternal life. But perhaps the greatest thing of all--greater, I believe, than forgiveness, than healing, than the gift of the Holy Ghost; greater even than eternal life itself, is what the Gospel says about those who received Christ. To those who received Him, He gave them an inalienable right.

We hear a lot about people and their rights today. We have an entire Bill of Rights in our nation, dedicated to the preservation of our individual liberties, enumerating such rights as the freedom to say what we want, to worship how we want, to publish what we want, to gather where we want. Some fight for the rights of the unborn, others for the rights of animals, others for the rights of immigrants, still others for the rights of minorities, of alternative lifestyles. Some fight for the right to choose, the right to bear arms, the right to vote. But through Jesus Christ, we have the greatest right of all.

To those who received them, He gave the right...

He gave us the freedom...

He gave us the liberty...

He gave us the privilege...

He gave us the ability...

He gave us the honor...

He gave us the power...

To those who received Him as Lord and Savior, as Master and Teacher, who received Him as the Light and Life sent from heaven by God, who received Him as the very Word of God, to those who received Him, He gave the right to become the Children of God!