Beloved Son

January 1, 2016

Devotions:

        A new year begins and people make resolutions and goals to do better in the new year than in the last year.  Not long after making these resolutions they are broken and forgotten. Forgotten because we have a sense of failure and defeat because we could not carry through and keep our resolutions. 

        After Jesus was filled with the Holy Spirit in Matthew 3, He was immediately led into the wilderness by the Holy Spirit to be tested and tempted by the devil. Jesus stayed true to His resolve to live wholly for the Father throughout these temptations.  How did He do that?  At His baptism the Father said something very significant, "You are my beloved son in whom I am well pleased." Later in the temptations Satan left out the word beloved, 'if you are the Son of God......" A very important omition. Because Jesus was secure in His Sonship before the Father and not just Sonship but beloved Sonship, He could stay true to the Father.  Adam and Eve had doubted the Father's love for them and disobeyed the Father. 

        This new year we see ourselves in Jesus and Jesus in us and the Father sees us as His beloved sons because we are in Jesus.  This is not based on our obedience but on Jesus' obedience.  When we know that we are beloved sons then we can bravely go into the new year with no fear and a confident expectation of good and favor from our Father. 

        Above all else this year, seek to know the depth and length and breath and height of the Father's love for you.  Delight in and rejoice in that you are a beloved son because you are in Jesus and He is in you.  Those who have never received what Jesus did for them, now is that time to receive that He died in your place for your sins, was buried and rose again on the third day to give you life and relationship with the Father. God will turn your mess around when you become His beloved son in Christ Jesus.