Família de Deus
A família de Deus transcende laços de sangue. Em Cristo, somos adotados como filhos, irmãos uns dos outros e membros de uma família eterna — a Igreja.
Adotados por Deus
Recebemos o espírito de adoção pelo qual clamamos: Abba, Pai! Se filhos, também herdeiros — herdeiros de Deus e co-herdeiros com Cristo.
God’s Spirit doesn’t make us slaves who are afraid of him. Instead, we become his children and call him our Father.God’s Spirit makes us sure that we are his children. His Spirit lets us know that together with Christ we will be given what God has promised. We will also share in the glory of Christ, because we have suffered with him.
But when the time was right, God sent his Son, and a woman gave birth to him. His Son obeyed the Law, so he could set us free from the Law, and we could become God’s children. Now that we are his children, God has sent the Spirit of his Son into our hearts. And his Spirit tells us that God is our Father. You are no longer slaves. You are God’s children, and you will be given what he has promised.
All of you are God’s children because of your faith in Christ Jesus. And when you were baptized, it was as though you had put on Christ in the same way you put on new clothes. Faith in Christ Jesus is what makes each of you equal with each other, whether you are a Jew or a Greek, a slave or a free person, a man or a woman.
God was kind and decided that Christ would choose us to be God’s own adopted children. God treated us with undeserved grace because of the Son he dearly loves, and so we should praise God.
Christ’s Love for Us
I kneel in prayer to the Father. All beings in heaven and on earth receive their life from him.
Yet some people accepted him
and put their faith in him.
So he gave them the right
to be the children of God.
They were not God’s children
by nature or because
of any human desires.
God himself was the one
who made them his children.
A comunidade de fé
Não abandonem a congregação. Somos um corpo em Cristo, membros uns dos outros, chamados a amar e a servir.
Some people have given up the habit of meeting for worship, but we must not do that. We should keep on encouraging each other, especially since you know that the day of the Lord’s coming is getting closer.
Be patient when you are being corrected! This is how God treats his children. Don’t all parents correct their children? God corrects all his children, and if he doesn’t correct you, then you don’t really belong to him. Our earthly fathers correct us, and we still respect them. Isn’t it even better to be given true life by letting our spiritual Father correct us?
Our human fathers correct us for a short time, and they do it as they think best. But God corrects us for our own good, because he wants us to be holy, as he is.
That’s how it is with us. There are many of us, but we each are part of the body of Christ, as well as part of one another.
If one part of our body hurts, we hurt all over. If one part of our body is honored, the whole body will be happy.
You Gentiles are no longer strangers and foreigners. You are citizens with everyone else who belongs to the family of God. You are like a building with the apostles and prophets as the foundation and with Christ as the most important stone. Christ is the one who holds the building together and makes it grow into a holy temple for the Lord. And you are part of that building Christ has built as a place for God’s own Spirit to live.
Quem é minha família?
Jesus disse: quem faz a vontade de Deus, esse é meu irmão e irmã. A família de Deus inclui todos os que creem.
Jesus asked, "Who is my mother and who are my brothers?" Then he looked at the people sitting around him and said, "Here are my mother and my brothers. Anyone who obeys God is my brother or sister or mother."
And slaves don’t stay in the family forever, though the Son will always remain in the family.
Jesus answered:
If God were your Father, you would love me, because I came from God and now I am here. He sent me. I did not come on my own.
How To Act toward Others
Don’t correct an older man. Encourage him, as you would your own father. Treat younger men as you would your own brother, and treat older women as you would your own mother. Show the same respect to younger women that you would to your sister.
Think how much the Father loves us. He loves us so much that he lets us be called his children, as we truly are. But since the people of this world did not know who Christ is, they don’t know who we are. My dear friends, we are already God’s children, though what we will be hasn’t yet been seen. But we do know when Christ returns, we will be like him, because we will see him as he truly is.
We should help people whenever we can, especially if they are followers of the Lord.