Have you ever heard someone ask that? "What gives you the right?" They can be asking that about any number of things:
What gives you the right to tell me what to do?
What gives you the right to take that?
What gives you the right to go in there?
When that question is asked, it is because someone has done something they probably did not have permission to do; they are overstepping, and got called on it. Someone has assumed a right for himself that he did not have.
Now imagine someone claiming to be a child of God. That is an audacious claim, teetering on blasphemy. A mere mortal saying he is God's child. What gives you the right to say you are God's child!?
The Bible tells us where we get that right: it is our faith. John 1:12 says, "But to all who did receive Him, who believed in His name, He gave the right to become children of God."
The word "believed" is better understood as trusted in. This is more than just intellectually agreeing to a fact; it involves putting our trust in Jesus, depending on Him for our eternal salvation. Anyone who is willing to do that is given the right to becomes God's child through the spirit of adoption.
The audacity of introducing yourself as a child of God may be hard for some to fathom, but it is not the claim of some crackpot with a Messiah complex. It is a biblically factual assessment. But neither is it an arrogant claim because this position is not of our own doing. We are given this right because of our belief, not our actions. We do not earn this right by performing well enough; it is based on the performance of Jesus when He went to the cross.
What gives you the right to call yourself a child of God? God does, and He does to anyone who will trust in His name.
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