Loved Into Being

See what kind of love the Father has given to us, that we should be called children of God; and so we are. 1John 3:1

We are the children of God for one reason only, that is, because of what God has done in loving us. All that we might list regarding God’s actions to make us his children, our first creation as human beings, the sending of the divine Son into the world to rescue us, his generous and constant mercy and grace to forgive us, the pouring out of the Spirit upon us, or anything else, are all but aspects of one thing, God’s love. Therefore, John properly states that we are called his children because of his love for us. There is no “and” concerning other things of God, nor of us, but only the numerous ways in which the divine nature can be described as having been expressed.  Each and every manner in which the uncreated but creating love of God has acted for, on, and in us, is why we are called children of God.

When considering the magnitude, creative strength, and healing power of God’s love, there is no need to discuss our part in responding to that love, not because we have no part, but because the perfection of God’s relationship with us swallows up our imperfection. Whatever we have done which has been animated and empowered by that love has been a poor reflection of the love which has made us children of God. All that we do, from the faith which is our initial love toward God, our submission and obedience as an expression of how we love God and his ways, or how we love others and creation in imitation of the divine love, is not worthy to be set alongside God’s love as some additional reason for why we are his children.

If we are discussing the natural light of our world, we need to speak only of the sun. Even if people are holding mirrors to reflect those rays, there is no point in saying anything about them or the reflective objects they hold. All the light is from one source alone. The whole bright illumination streams forth from the sun, and so it is when discussing why we are children of God. The divine love has made us so.

Those of us who have by grace a more tender conscience, perhaps a greater sense than some others of our own failures, an awareness that inevitably increases as we are drawn closer to God, may tend to worry about the obvious insufficiency of our love for God. But our love was never meant to be the basis of our relationship with God. His love forms us into his children, not our love.

This is love: not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins. 1 John 4:10

I restate again that which I wrote earlier, that the perfection of God’s relationship with us swallows up our imperfection. Our shortcomings are devoured, wholly and completed enveloped and subsumed in the love of God. Feeble love of poor imitation is all we have in response to God’s love. Thanks be to God that we are his children by virtue of his love and not ours!