God Is My Father, October 12

God in My Life Behold, what manner of love the Father hath bestowed upon us, that we should be called the sons of God. 1 John 3:1. What love, what matchless love, that, sinners and aliens as we are, we may be brought back to God and adopted into His family! We may address Him by the endearing name, “Our Father,” which is a sign of our affection for Him and a pledge of His tender regard and relationship to us. And the Son of God, beholding the heirs of grace, “is not ashamed to call them brethren.” They have even a more sacred relationship to God than have the angels who have never fallen. All the paternal love which has come down from generation to generation through the channel of human hearts, all the springs of tenderness which have opened in the souls of men, are but as a tiny rill to the boundless ocean, when compared with the infinite, exhaustless love of God. Tongue cannot utter it; pen cannot portray it. You may meditate upon it every day of your life; you may search the Scriptures diligently in order to understand it; you may summon every power and capability that God has given you, in the endeavor to comprehend the love and compassion of the heavenly Father; and yet there is an infinity beyond.38Bible Echo and Signs of the Times, August 15, 1889 (Testimonies for the Church 5:739, 740). In all His children God beholds the image of His only-begotten Son. He looks upon them with a love greater than any language can express. He enfolds them in the arms of His love. The Lord rejoices over His people.39Letter 30, 1892. He has redeemed us out of the careless world and has chosen us to become members of the royal family, sons and daughters of the heavenly King. He invites us to trust in Him with a trust deeper and stronger than that of a child in his earthly father.40Christ's Object Lessons, 142. God is to us a tender, compassionate, heavenly Father.41Manuscript 1, 1891.