Too often we do not live like children of the living God! We forget that we were bought and paid for by Jesus. The price was his body broken, his blood poured out. We live like orphans, not adopted children of the living God. Scott Wilson wrote the following in his article on "How To Stop Being A Spiritual Orphan." 

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What does it mean to be a spiritual son or daughter of Christ? I've been learning that so many Christians are children of God without ever living in the fullness and abundance that should come along with it.

So what is the key to living as a child of God? Here are the four steps to becoming a spiritual son:

1. Believe God loves you - Sometime, we go through our lives working to earn the love of God. Becoming a spiritual son and daughters begins when we believe what God says to us particularly that he loves us. God sent Jesus to die in our place because he loves us, and the sooner we believe in His love, the sooner we'll be able to live as the dearly loved children we are.

2. Trust God - We must trust God if we are going to live as His sons and daughters. God gives us some bold and amazing promises in His word, but if we are going to take hold of those promises and live out the reality of those promises in our lives, we have to believe what He tells us. Go through God's Word and notice the things He says that are hard for you to believe. Write them down and pray over them. Pray He will help you believe and help you trust in what He says. It is crucial that we believe God is good, and that He loves us, and that He's working everything together for the good of those who love Him and are called according to His purpose. Without believing that, the next steps would be impossible.

3. Submit to Him and His mission - This is a lesson we must all learn for ourselves at one point or another, but I've learned it's much better to do what God tells you to do than to try and be your own boss. This requires laying down our own desires and our own ideas of what's best. But when we do that, we find that God's plan is always better than our own. God has a purpose and a mission for each of us. He has given us instructions for how we live our lives. The sooner we can submit to His authority, His guidance, and His mission for the world and our place in it, the better off we'll be. This is the ultimate act of trust in our Father. By submitting to His call and His ways, we're declaring we trust Him more than we trust ourselves. Trust is the ultimate sign of being a child of God.

4. Submit to earthly authorities put in place by the Father - This may be the toughest part for some of us. Our submission does not stop at the Father, as much as we want it to. If we trust God as our leader, we are called (and instructed) to submit to the authorities God has placed over us. Husbands, are called to love their wives as Christ loved the church. Christ gave His life for the church in the ultimate act of submission to the Father. He gave everything to love her, and husbands are called to do the same. Wives are called to submit to their husbands in the same way wives submit to Jesus. Their husband is the head of the family as Christ is the Head of the Church. Children, are called to submit to their parents and grandparents in all things. And this is very important.

Submitting to our earthly authorities shows a deep trust in the Lord and His sovereignty. He has orchestrated our relationships with each other so we can understand in deeper fullness who He is and His relationship to us.

Through submission, God shows us what the fullness of being His child is all about. Becoming a spiritual son or daughter does not happen overnight, but it is the most fulfilling journey in our lives as Christians. We are embarking on a life-long journey of not just knowing we are God's children and co-heirs with Christ, but really living that out.

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That is awesome isn't it? Are you living into being a son or daughter of the living God? How is your relationship with your new brother Jesus? When things get tough, remember...God is good, all the time!  All the time, God is good!