Because He Lives: The King's Daughter

THE KING’S DAUGHTER

   (Part of a series sharing my devotional thoughts from almost two decades ago. For the back story & links to other posts, see the first post in the series.)

Once upon a time, there was a wealthy king. He was so rich, in fact, that he owned everything that anybody could look around and see. All the land was his. All the storehouses held his food. He owned so many cattle he didn’t know where they all grazed. And the homes the people lived in -- you guessed it, they belonged to him as well.

This king loved nothing more than to enjoy the company of special people. One day he chose a young girl, a pauper whose parents had barely been able to scrape together a living before their deaths, to become his adopted daughter. This girl was so excited -- she would again have someone to call Father! She eagerly accepted his invitation, and the king joyously anticipated her company.

However, as the weeks and months and years passed, nothing substantial changed in this young pauper girl’s life. Oh, she called herself the king’s daughter. Yet she went around in rags, ate yesterday’s leftovers from wastebaskets, and slept on rocky ground exposed to the weather. And the loving king -- why, he could barely remember the last time his daughter had come and talked to him. It hurt him so much to know that everything he owned was hers, simply because he had chosen her -- yet she chose instead to live out in the cold, damp weather. Nobody would ever think she belonged to the king. She lived life as full of misery as the next person.

What a sad story! Yet that is how many Christians live today. Our Father is God, who owns the cattle on a thousand hills (Ps. 50:10)! We are joint-heirs with Jesus -- that means we share in everything that is His (Rom. 8:17)! We have been blessed with every spiritual blessing in heaven, and in fact are seated with Christ in the heavenlies (Eph. 2:6). Yet we don’t reach out and take what belongs to us. We sometimes act as if we are just as miserable and hopeless as those who don’t know Him.

The Bible says in Lamentations 3:21-26: “This I recall to my mind. Therefore I have hope. The Lord’s lovingkindnesses indeed never cease, for His compassions never fail. They are new every morning; Great is Thy faithfulness. ‘The Lord is my portion,’ says my soul, ‘Therefore I have hope in Him.’ The Lord is good to those who wait for Him, to the person who seeks Him. It is good that he waits silently for the salvation of the Lord.” Did you read that? God’s compassion  -- His mercy -- is new EVERY MORNING. Whatever you are going to face today, tomorrow, every day for the rest of your life -- He has already provided what you need to get through it. He is your portion -- your sufficiency, your provision. He knows exactly how much strength, mercy, grace, compassion, love, etc., you will need to make it. And He knows when you can’t do it in your own power, so He provided that we can call on Him and through the Holy Spirit, face everything in HIS power.

Furthermore, according to Ephesians 1, we have been adopted as His children, have obtained an inheritance, and been given the Holy Spirit as a pledge of that inheritance. Romans 8 says His Spirit bears witness with our spirit that we are children of God, and therefore heirs of God and joint heirs with Jesus. We can even call God by the very personal name of “Abba”, or “Daddy.”

If you have confessed with your mouth Jesus as Lord (meaning that you have given Him control of your life) and believed in your heart that God raised Him from the dead, you are saved (Romans 10:9). You are a child of the King, and you  are NOT destined to live life in the same way as those without the knowledge of God. Our Father is the King of Kings and Lord of Lords -- and He chose us to be His adopted children. Whatever you need has already been provided. All we have to do is reach out to the One who holds the key to the storehouses. Our heavenly Father, who sits eagerly waiting for us to sit and talk with Him, to learn what it means to be His children, makes His mercies new every morning.

“Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places in Christ.” Ephesians 1:3

“...I came that they might have life, and might have it abundantly.” John 10:10 [Jesus’ words]

“Every good thing bestowed and every perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of lights, with whom there is no variation, or shifting shadow.”

James 1:17