John 1:12-13: A Child of God
Wednesday, June 11, 2025
God tells the faithful, “I am who I am”. Jesus says to us: “I am the Good Shepherd, the Bread of Life, the Light of the World, the Door, the Resurrection, the Life, the Way, and Truth. I am the great Vine to your Branches”. Today we begin a series of posts on who we are to God. We open with an adapted reprise of a Favorite posted on August 3, 2012.
But to those who did accept him he gave power to become children of God, to those who believe in his name, who were born not by natural generation nor by human choice nor by a man’s decision but of God.
For a long time I have reflected on the idea of how God determines who receives the gift of faith and who does not. I have had conversations with God in which I ask why it is that some of us are so stiff-necked and others of us have the gift of patience. I trust God’s plan, I believe that we are created as God’s children, and here in the Gospel of John, in one simple sentence, we are enlightened. I will have to refer to this citation when the questions rise again to pull me from the core of my belief.
Believing in Jesus as the Word, as Resurrected, as brother – this is what makes us children of God. Through him, with him, in him, in unity with the Holy Spirit. Jesus is infinite pre-existence. Jesus is all of creations’ eternal future. Jesus is the Incarnation – the word and thought and touch of God amidst us. Jesus is an offering, a gift freely given by a loving and passionate God – a God who loves us so deeply and so endlessly – that God brings God’s self to us without our even asking.
When we act in child-like trust rather than childish petulance, we experience the faith of one who is sister and brother to Christ. When we act in outrageous hope that the Father loves each of us more than we can imagine, we experience the bond we have with Jesus. When we act in compassion and mercy toward those we love and those who do us harm, we experience the Holy Spirit’s healing, truth, and transformation.
We are all the Children of God.
What a wondrous God is this.
The Life-Light was the real thing:
Every person entering Life
he brings into Light.
He was in the world,
the world was there through him,
and yet the world didn’t even notice.
He came to his own people,
but they didn’t want him.
But whoever did want him,
who believed he was who he claimed
and would do what he said,
He made to be their true selves,
their child-of-God selves.
These are the God-begotten,
not blood-begotten,
not flesh-begotten,
not sex-begotten. (THE MESSAGE)
Relying on God as a trusting child does, we pray Psalm 25 as we close our day. When we repeat the antiphon, Teach me your ways, O Lord, we place ourselves in God’s enormous, loving, life-giving hands.
Tomorrow, we are branches.
When we compare other translations of these verses, we find that we have gathered at the Father’s knee, we are cradled in the Mother’s arms, we are EACH and ALL blessed by the Holy Spirit as precious and valued children of God.
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Images from: http://wouldyouliketosingasong.blogspot.com/2013/01/practicing-i-am-child-of-god.html and https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/world/south-asia/500000-afghan-children-affected-by-drought-unicef/articleshow/63893237.cms
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