My wife, daughter and I were at one of our daughter’s fifth-grade conferences for school, and the teacher told us about a 40-book challenge they would be doing for the rest of the school year. The challenge was to read a certain amount from different genres to help expand the student’s reading. In order to have fun with our only daughter, my wife and I decided to do the challenge as well.
This is going to be interesting for me since I so rarely read any fiction. I got a recommendation of an audio book that I am now in the middle of listening to. The premise of the book deals with a medieval regent who takes some orphan boys and attempts to teach them to act like a missing prince in order to steal the throne. I haven’t finished the book yet, but it got me thinking about a challenge they had: It was hard for them to act like princes when they were still orphans in their minds.
This reminded me of one of my favorite verses: “Consider how much love the Father has given to us, that we should be called children of God” (1 John 3:1). The world does not know us because it did not know Him. This story reveals an important truth: If we have given ourselves to Jesus, we are not pretending to be children of God. We really are His children. This truth carries some powerful ramifications for us.
We don’t have to live bound by sin.
It is too easy to get in the mindset of orphans and feel like our identity is to be captive to wherever sin holds us back. One of the devil’s biggest lies today is in questioning people’s identity. Christians also tell themselves these lies. “Well, that is a sin I’m just not able to overcome.” “That’s the way I’ve always been.” As a follower of Jesus, slavery to sin no longer needs to be your identity because you are a child of God.
We are free to love.
After John challenges believers to leave their sin because of who they are, he also reminds them of the command to love each other. He even challenges them to be loving with their material possessions. Expressing your love to others in actions and truth comes as we understand that we are children of God and orphans no longer.
Remain in your source of power.
These two things can feel challenging. But there is hope. David in the Old Testament was anointed king, but had years before he was seated on the throne. He still acted kingly because he remembered his anointing. In 1 John 2:27, John he reminds his readers of the anointing Jesus gave us (the power of the Holy Spirit.) If we are to truly live in freedom from sin and in the power of love, we are encouraged to remain in that anointing.
Will you live today as a child of God and not as an orphan any longer?
Curt Landry 
Michael L. Brown 
Rabbi Eric Tokajer 
