The Filiant Father And His Chosen Children

When you receive the Seal you become a child of God the Father. God is filiant, gathering His children to Him, even raising children of Abraham out of the stones of the field.

You may have been hard-hearted once. When you are sealed your heart will soften. Even if you were once so hard-hearted you were just like a stone, God is filiant and thus will bring you to Himself as His child.

Some people who have known you may be surprised to see you have come to God. They never expected that, and it does not seem to fit your image. They will know better when they see how you have changed.

John the Baptist was surprised to see the religious authorities of his day come to him to be baptized. "Who showed you," he asked them, "that you should flee from the anger that is coming?"

The anger he spoke of was the Judgment of God. The Kingdom of God was at hand--God was about to appear. That anger was shown when they rejected Jesus, and that was when they were judged.

"Produce then," John the Baptist told them, "fruits worthy of repentance." He was telling them to repent. They should not stop sinning without changing their hearts. And neither should they change their heart without stopping sinning.

"For you should not seem to say in yourselves," he told them, "we have father Abraham." They often did it--they often corrupted their heritage. Instead of inheriting holiness as the chosen of God they were lowly sinners.

But John was not denying the holiness of Abraham and some of the other forefathers. Abraham was chosen by God and John affirmed it. But the way he affirmed it was a curious new way.

"For I say to you," he said to them, "that God is able from out of these stones to raise children to Abraham." Something as cold and lifeless as a stone could become a child of Abraham, the spiritual father.

God would give that stone spiritual life, and it would live as a spiritual child of Abraham. You may become a child of Abraham even if your own heart is as cold as a stone. And you may become a child of God Himself.

You become a child of Abraham before you become a child of God. You become a child of Isaac, and of Jacob. You become a child of Judah and of David. Finally you become a child of Jesus Christ.

Isaiah called the Messiah the "Everlasting Father," and so Jesus Christ the Messiah becomes a spiritual father to you, so that you will inherit the spiritual blessings promised to Him through Abraham and all his children.

"And already," John the Baptist said, "even the axe is set to the root of the trees. For all trees not producing good fruit are cut down and thrown into fire." This is the Judgment of God you can avoid by becoming sealed.

When you become sealed you will bear fruit because God will plant a garden in you. That is what the Seal is--a little piece of land ready to give life unto a little wheat seed. That dry seed is first hard like a stone but will soon live as a tender green shoot.

God accomplishes it with the wheat seed in your garden, and He will accomplish it with you. He will adopt you as His child since He loves you with filiant love when you receive the Seal.