The new birth - All The Good Seed Daily Devotionals for 2024

Behold what manner of love the Father has bestowed on us, that we should be called children of God!
1 John 3:1

The new birth
When we have children of our own, we love them. The love of parents for their children has been placed within us by the Creator. Next to the love between husband and wife, there is no closer relationship than that between parents and their children. And now we learn from the Bible that God makes people His children. How can this happen?

A child comes into being through procreation and birth. It is the same with God's relationship with men in a figurative sense. The Epistle of James explains that the believer has been begotten according to God's will through the word of truth (cf. James 1:18). And the apostle Peter writes in his first letter, "Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who according to His abundant mercy has begotten us again to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead" (1 Peter 1:3).

The new birth that makes a person a child of God is a work of God. It happens apart from our origin or ancestry - otherwise many people would be disadvantaged. Even social or religious heroic deeds do not make us children of God - and certainly not the influence that others exert on us, no matter how good it may be (cf. John 1:13).

What must happen is clearly written: "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).

Nothing can make our lives richer, happier and more meaningful than the awareness of being a child of God, knowing the Almighty God as Father and following His good will.

Today's reading: Numbers 14:26-45 · Matthew 10:1-15