Question: Being a former Catholic, I was taught that we are all children of God. Is that so? Or do we become children of God once we receive Christ as our personal Savior?

Answer: Many wrongly assume that God is the father of everyone. They speak of the universal fatherhood of God and the universal brotherhood of man. While God is the creator of every human being, He is only the Father of His own people.

The Jews who rejected Christ claimed that God was their father (John 8:41). Were they right to make such a claim? No, not according to the Lord Jesus. He responded: "If God were your Father, you would love me...you are of your father the devil" (John 8:42,44). They assumed, like most people today, that God was their Father. The truth was that God was not their father at all, but the devil!

Unconverted people are never called children of God in the Holy Bible. On the contrary they are described as lost, enemies, sinners, without God and children of wrath. Such is their pitiful spiritual condition!

Christians, on the other hand, are called children of God (Roman 8:14-17). There was a time when they were not his children, like the rest of mankind. But a point came in their life when God by His mercy adopted them as His children. The apostle John tells us:

[Jesus] came to His own, and His own did not receive Him. But as many as received Him, to them He gave the right to become children of God, to those who believe in His name: who were born, not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God (John 1:11-13).

Note that Christ grants believers the power to become the sons of God. That implies that they were not sons before they received Him by faith.

Only Christians have the right to call God "Our heavenly Father!" Are you a child of God? Are you born again? Have you received Christ by faith?