Article August 11, 1986 Issue

"We are the children of God"

AMY K. ANDERSON

Have you ever felt, during a church service, or while reading the Bible, your heart burn within you? Have you felt a deep recognition of what the words were saying? Or have you felt a tremendous yearning to help and heal others? Do you feel a perpetual push inside you to keep learning more about God? All of these are really evidence of one fact. The fact? That we are the children of God, wholly spiritual and made in His likeness.

What were you feeling when you felt that undeniable affinity with the disciples, or Paul, or David? What was it that made you so full of desire to comfort and heal as the Master, Christ Jesus, did? What is it that keeps wanting to understand more and more about God? It is the effect of the Spirit itself, speaking in our hearts. In Romans 8, Paul says, "The Spirit itself beareth witness with our spirit, that we are the children of God."^{Rom. 8:16.} These deep feelings of sincerity, humanity, and otherworldliness make us feel our oneness with God and understand that we are spiritual and His children.

So, why don't we always feel this wonderful closeness to God? Why do we sometimes doubt or become afraid? What makes us satisfied with material things? Paul gives us the answer again: "The carnal mind is enmity against God: for it is not subject to the law of God, neither indeed can be."^{Rom. 8:7.} The carnal mind is the thinking that would limit us to what we materially see, feel, hear, taste, or smell. It can't discern man's spirituality and is antagonistic to those very thoughts and feelings that attest to man's spiritual nature.