Good morning, everyone, and welcome back to another Mornings with the Masters. We're

devoting ourselves to the Lord, Ely, with you. Good morning, you guys. Good morning, indeed.

We are picking up with day five of our renamed devotional. In the Bible app, there's a link

to that in the description if you guys want to follow along with us. And as always, I'm

going to read the scripture than Tori's going to pick up the divo. Let's do it. The scripture is

first John chapter three versus one through two. And it says this, see how very much our father

loves us for he calls us his children. And that is what we are. But the people who belong to this

world don't recognize that we are God's children because they don't know him. Dear friends,

we are all ready, God's children. But he has not yet shown us what we will be like when

Christ appears. But we do know that we will be like him, for we will see him as he really is.

The devotional is titled no longer orphans. And it says this, the idea of any child being

unloved in a loan stirs strong emotions within us. None of us want to think about any child

being orphaned. But the truth is, before we come into relationship with Jesus, we are orphans,

spiritual orphans. When we accept Christ, we are adopted into God's family. We are no longer

orphans searching desperately for a home. We have been given a new identity. We are now called

at children of God. Being children of God means God is our father. And he loves us unconditionally.

In God's family, we begin to develop his mannerisms and characteristics. As adopted children,

we are to imitate God our father by doing and saying what he does and says. Just like a child

imitates his or her parents, we are called to be and act increasingly more like our Heavenly Father

every day. This transformation happens as we spend time with God and come to know him better.

When people look at your life, can they tell you are a child of God? Can they see the characteristics

of Christ in you? How hard would they have to look to find anything that ties you to him?

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