As we raise our children through their formative years, we are hopeful that their personalities will develop positively. We pray that they don’t inherit or observe and copy our negative attributes. While expecting them to be individuals with their own peculiar characters, we hope that they pick up our best traits and encourage them in that direction by highlighting those traits.
Earthly fathers have all kinds of vices that they want hidden from their kids; not so with our heavenly Father. He is all goodness, lovingly kind, and tenderly merciful, always ready to forgive. His only Son is exactly like Him. Naturally, being a fair-minded Dad, His desire is for His adopted sons and daughters to also resemble Him in these excellent attributes. This is how they are identified as His, as members of His Family and followers of His Son, as opposed to those who follow other gods. He figures that these copied attributes will also attract and help convert those who have not heard about or believe in His Son’s redemptive sacrifice.
He realizes that this will not be easy for His adopted children because their flesh always goes for the opposite of everything He wants for them. He therefore provides His Holy Spirit to each adopted child to help them become more like Him everyday as they journey through the ups and downs of life. Not only that, He makes every spiritual blessing that can help them available in heavenly places through Christ, expecting them to declare and claim said blessings as theirs – Eph. 1:3.
Every parent’s dream……that is also the dream of our Heavenly Dad……He has been good to us. Let us respond to His gracious mercies by imitating Him, using all the resources He has made available.
Be ye therefore followers of God, as dear children. – Ephesians 5:1
Hilltop Thoughts, Valley Strengths 