IGod and His Family
ACTS 2:39 [Peter, telling a crowd of the promise of the Holy Spirit:] For the promise is for you and for your children and for all who are far off, everyone whom the Lord our God calls to himself.
God enables people to believe and turn to Jesus Christ
JOHN 6:44 [Jesus:] No one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draws him, and I will raise him up at the last day.
God’s people belong to Him
1 PETER 2:9 [Peter, to believers:] However, you are chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, people who belong to God.
COLOSSIANS 3:12 [Paul, to believers:] God loves you and has chosen you as his own special people. So be gentle, kind, humble, meek, and patient.
ISAIAH 63:8 He [God] said, “Certainly they will be my people, children who are not disloyal.”
God’s people belong to Jesus Christ
JOHN 10:29 [Jesus, referring to his followers:] My Father, who has given them to me, is greater than all, and no one can snatch them from my Father’s hand.
EPHESIANS 2:19 So then you are no longer foreigners and noncitizens, but you are fellow citizens with the saints and members of God’s household
They are God’s children
JOHN 1:12-13 But to all who have received him [Jesus Christ] – those who believe in his name – he has given the right to become God’s children – children not born by human parents or by human desire or a husband’s decision, but by God.
As God’s children, they are also heirs of God
ROMANS 8:17 [Paul, to believers:] And if children, then heirs (namely, heirs of God and also fellow heirs with Christ) – if indeed we suffer with him so we may also be glorified with him.
God’s people are Jesus Christ’s brothers and sisters
MATTHEW 12:49-50 And pointing toward his disciples he [Jesus] said, “Here are my mother and my brothers! For whoever does the will of my Father in heaven is my brother and sister and mother.”
MATTHEW 23:8 [Jesus, to his followers:] But you must not be called ‘Teacher,’ because you have only one Teacher, and you are all brothers and sisters together.
God’s People Are His Church
ACTS 20:28 [Paul, to the Ephesian church leaders:] Watch out for yourselves and for all the flock of which the Holy Spirit has made you overseers, to shepherd the church of God that he obtained with the blood of his own Son.
The church is God’s temple, in which God dwells by his Holy Spirit
1 CORINTHIANS 3:16 [Paul, to the Corinthian church:] Do you not know that you are God’s temple and that God’s Spirit lives in you?