Metamorphosis of Mariposa by Milton Fay

Author:Milton, Fay [Milton, Fay]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2020-07-15T16:00:00+00:00

Who is A Child of God?

“You are a child of the universe,

no less than the trees and the stars;

you have a right to be here.

And whether or not it is clear to you,

no doubt the universe is unfolding as it should.”

― Max Ehrmann , Desiderata

I hear many ideas about who is a child of God. I sift through them and wonder what gives Christians the right to say that only Christians are children of God.

In India where 80% of the nation is Hindu, 2% of the population claim Christianity. The population of India is over a billion. Your birth in this land would likely mean you are not Christian.

In China, estimates vary, but about 5% of the Chinese claim Christianity. Yet, by population, the crime rates in the US are 3 times that of China. The fear of crime in the US is twice as great.

In Japan, over 80% accept evolution and less than 10% claim, with certainty, that God exists. It is one of the lowest crime-prone countries in the world.

In the US, over 50% profess Christianity, yet the murder rates here are unknown to the Muslim world.

Yet, many would have you believe that these non-Christians, many who have had no exposure to Christianity, are not children of God. They are not saved and will be heading to hell.

I have a problem with this.

I was raised as a Christian. Later I embraced a so-called ‘Bible-based’ religion. I knew my bible well or thought I did. I was taught that life was sacred. ‘God is love’ is something that resonated with me throughout my life. So if I could put all of my biblical teachings into one sentence I would conclude that ‘love is the essence of spirituality.’

Whatever faith you may claim – love and truth are the key. Love allows truth to be scrutinized and revised based on evidence and experience. Love produces compassion and humility. It breeds fellow feeling and empathy. Whatever the dogma – if you don’t have love you do not mirror the divine.

The statement is made that ‘God made man in His image’. We know that it is not the physical part of us that was made in his image. It is something beyond that. Each time we have a loving response we reflect something greater than ourselves. No matter how bad our circumstances – even in the depths of despair, we are capable of rising above the tragedy to display love and kindness. The principle “draw close to Him and He will draw close to you”, also shows the correlation between application of love and the manifestation of that quality in our lives. It is that divine within us that also recognizes truth and sees beauty despite ‘exterior’ ugliness.

Just like a child who displays qualities of his parents are spoken of as ‘being a chip off the old block’; a child of God is one who, from the heart, lives life in a loving manner. That is the pattern of behavior of a ‘child of god’.

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