1 John 3:1“How great is the love the Father has lavished on us, that we should be called the children of God! And that is what we are!”

I’m over 50 years old now. Do I still want to be called a child? Doesn’t that suggest naive, immature, even incompetent? Maybe you are familiar with children’s author Mercer Mayer. He created the character “Little Critter.” One of my favorite books is titled “All by Myself.” From the moment he gets out of bed and gets dressed, to the time that he puts on his pajamas and brushes his teeth, Little Critter brags about all the things he can do “all by myself.”

Isn’t that how we think, even when we are children? I want to be big. I want to be grown-up. I want out from underneath my parents’ shadow. Don’t call me those cutesy pet names. A car commercial depicts a middle-school girl telling her dad, “You don’t have to drop me off in front of school. You can drop me off right here.” “What’s the matter? Don’t want to be seen with your dad in front of your friends?” Some days, that’s how it is with our Father. Instead of smart, sophisticated, respectable men or women of the world we are the “children of God.” Yuck.

But your Father loves you too much to let that change things. He is fully committed to this relationship. He will patiently call us to repentance 10,000 times if that is what it takes. He did not sacrifice his Son for nothing, and the blood of Jesus in the water of your baptism is less like the bath or shower you take once at the start of your day. It is more like you and I are fish, and we swim around in the grace and forgiveness coming from the cross every moment of every day for the rest of our lives. As the children of God, it is the air we breathe, the environment in which we live. See your Father’s lavish love?

Being called by the Father, “My child,” is better than being smart, or respected, or talented, or self-sufficient. It means you are treasured. Sometimes people, even Christians, have gotten the idea that the key word in this relationship is obedience. And certainly it serves children to learn to be obedient. But not because they were brought into this family to provide cheap labor.

Your Father only wants to keep you from harm. The key word here still is love, because you are his child.  He fully intends to protect you, feed you, clothe you, and do whatever else is necessary to take care of you. He claimed you and redeemed you because he wants to enjoy you as his very own.

There is a passage in the last chapter of Isaiah that pictures God like a mom bouncing her precious baby on her knee, maybe singing some silly song or playing patti-cake or some other childhood game, it doesn’t matter. It is about the affection and the joy of being together. You are that child, and you can see your Father’s lavish love in what you are.