The New Testament has a lot to say about our identity as Christians, including the fact that we have been adopted into the royal heavenly family as children of God. Our relationship with God is so intimate that we refer to him as Father.
Stop and reflect on that: we are “children of God.” That’s no little deal. In the Old Testament, the children of God were the spiritual beings of Heaven—the angels, cherubim, seraphim, the little-g-gods and so on. They were God’s heavenly family, granted the right to approach his throne and speak into the cases that came before his court. They were delegated heavenly tasks and were empowered to carry them out. They were glorious beings, some of them appointed to rule over the earth.
But the former family of God is in disarray. The Bible tells us that God doesn’t trust the spiritual beings of Heaven. His family has turned against him. All the little-g-gods have gone rogue. At least a third of the angels took up arms against God and got booted out.
But Christians? We’re the replacement plan. We are the new family of God. We’re the new holy ones who are delegated power, authority, and heavenly assignments. It’s no wonder Paul tells us we will one day judge angels.
This isn’t the way Christians perceive themselves. We look in the mirror, stare at the old flesh of Adam instead of the new flesh of Jesus and proclaim curses over ourselves. We call ourselves dirty, infested, sinful, idiotic, wormy schmucks. And by doing so, we throw ourselves into an identity crisis, calling ourselves things that our Father would never call us.
We need each other to pull ourselves out of our identity crisis. Like my friend who, after I said a negative statement about myself said, “Don’t talk about my friend that way.”
You’re a child of God. Don’t talk about yourself that way. Yes, live lowly like Jesus, but don’t think lowly like Satan.
*This devotional was created out of the themes of Romans 8:12-25 found in today’s reading at CommonPrayer.net. Below are the various AI-created pictures I typed into existence via Mid Journey to mock up artwork for today’s post.
Jamin Bradley 
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