God has always existed in loving relationship to himself, so he
has never been lonely. He didn’tneeda family—he desired one,
so he devised a plan to create us, bring us into his family, and
share with us all he has. This gives God great pleasure. The Bible
says, “It was a happy day for him when he gave us our new lives,
through the truth of his Word, and we became, as it were, the first
children in his new family.”^2
When we place our faith in Christ, God becomes our Father,
we become his children, other believers become our brothers and
sisters, and the church becomes our spiritual family. The family of
God includes all believers in the past, the present, and the future.
Every human being was created by God, but not everyone is a
childof God. The only way to get into God’s family is by being
born again into it. You became part of the human family by your
first birth, but you become a member of God’s family by your
second birth. God “has given us the privilege of being born again,
so that we are now members of God’s own family.”^3
The invitation to be part of God’s family is universal,^4 but there
is one condition: faith in Jesus. The Bible says, “You are all
children of God through faith in Christ Jesus.”^5
Your spiritual family is even more important than your physical
family because it will last forever. Our families on earth are
wonderful gifts from God, but they are temporary
and fragile, often broken by divorce, distance,
growing old, and inevitably, death. On the other
hand, our spiritual family—our relationship to other
believers—will continue throughout eternity. It is a
much stronger union, a more permanent bond, than
blood relationships. Whenever Paul would stop to
consider God’s eternal purpose for us together, he
would break out into praise: “When I think of the wisdom and scope
of his plan I fall down on my knees and pray to the Father of all the
great family of God—some of them already in heaven and some
down here on earth.”^6
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