Aliens Have Landed

“Dear friends, I urge you, as aliens and strangers in the world, to abstain from sinful desires, which war against your soul.” (1 Peter 2:11)

Our Christian children are aliens and lights in this world, holy and blameless sons and daughters of God in whom lives the Holy Spirit Himself. They’re not on a long and winding path to their destination—they’ve arrived already.

Do you see them? Not if you’re looking at them only with the eyes in your head.

“I keep asking that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the glorious Father, may give you the Spirit of wisdom and revelation, so that you may know him better. I pray also that the eyes of your heart may be enlightened in order that you may know the hope to which he has called you, the riches of his glorious inheritance in the saints, and his incomparably great power for us who believe.” (Ephesians 1:17-19)

The “glorious inheritance” in our children right now is more fantastic than anything else in this world. Just because it isn’t easy to see is no reason to turn away and quit looking! The need for revelation is another of God’s invitations to know and be satisfied by Him, and to be transformed into His likeness. When the Spirit reveals to me what He thinks about Ellen and Emma, I believe Him and approach them from there. In other words, I look and feel a whole lot like Jesus because I’m living by faith! And any opportunity to do that is wonderfully satisfying—it fits who I am.

If we don’t know what He has in mind when we look at our children, we’ll invent something instead, and it will never match up. We “live by faith and not by sight” not only in God’s promises but also in what God says he has already done for people and made them to be. We see all of life according to His opinion.

(Excerpted from my book, “God’s Astounding Opinion of You,” chapter 12: “Aliens Have Landed—The Proper Care and Feeding of the Everyday Foreigners in Your Family.” For more information and to read reviews by Steve McVey, Andrew Farley, David Gregory, Malcolm Smith and more, go to http://lifecourse.org/Ralphs_Book.html, to amazon.com, or you can find it at your local bookstore.)