Romans 8:15
John Wesley was one of the most influential preachers of the 18th century. He grew up in a Christian home and lived what looked like an exemplary Christian life. He was an honor graduate at Oxford University and became an ordained clergyman in the Church of England. He regularly visited prisoners in London and generously gave food to feed orphaned children. He was a student of the Bible. He prayed, fasted, and attended multiple worship services every Sunday. He even came to America as a missionary among the Native Americans in Georgia. Yet when Wesley returned to England from Georgia, he confessed in his journal that he was not a Christian. He wrote, “I who went to America to convert others was never myself converted to God.” Given all his religious activity, we might wonder how this could even be possible. Wesley went on to explain, “I had even then the faith of a servant, though not that of a son.”
In all of his activity, John Wesley had never entered into a relationship with God as Father. It is possible to be religious without being truly righteous. When Jesus Christ died on the cross for our sins, the Bible says that the veil between God and men was torn. A whole new way of coming to God was opened up to us. In the Old Testament, we were slaves. In the New Testament, we are sons. The Christian has been adopted into the family of God and is now the child of God. The Holy Spirit has come to take up residence in the heart of the believer, and He bears witness with our spirit that we are the children of God.
Adoption is the only way to get into God’s family! Praise the Lord today for the awesome and wonderful privilege of being a child of God.
For more, read Romans 8:12-17
