^“And He said to them, “Why did you seek Me? Did you not know that I must be about My Father’s business?” Luke 2:49 (NKJV)

This is what the twelve-year-old Jesus told his parents when they were looking for him in Jerusalem during their annual visit for the Feast of the Passover.  Always before when I read this passage, I just thought about it in the context of Jesus understanding and revealing his divinity. I did not see any application to myself. However, recently I re-read this passage and I realized that there is application.

First: As believers in Jesus, we are brothers and sisters in Christ, and children of God.  We call God “Father” just like Jesus did.

“The Spirit Himself bears witness with our spirit that we are children of God, and if children, then heirs—heirs of God and joint heirs with Christ, if indeed we suffer with Him, that we may also be glorified together.” Romans 8:16-17 (NKJV)

 This language, these terms, are used in the Scriptures for a reason.  We are to identify with these terms and consider them for what they mean to us today.  God is our Father, He is our authority, and He is our ultimate Provider.  Our God is wealthy and powerful beyond imagination, and as his children, we are heirs to everything He owns!  Is that not exciting? Who doesn’t dream that someone will send you a letter about a long-lost relative who has left you great sums of money in their will? Well, we all have a Father who wants to give us treasures beyond imagination, not because of anything we have done but because we are his children.

Second: As children of God, we must also be about our Father’s business. I know people who have had the good fortune to inherit a family business. As God’s son, Jesus saw himself as the inheritor of the family business. “I must be about my Father’s business.”  It was his sole focus to build up the Kingdom on behalf of his Father and on behalf of all of us. In John 15:15-16, Jesus tells his disciples (and us): “I no longer call you servants, because a servant does not know his master’s business. Instead, I have called you friends, for everything that I learned from my Father I have made known to you.  You did not choose me, but I chose you and appointed you so that you might go and bear fruit—fruit that will last—and so that whatever you ask in my name the Father will give you.”

Don’t miss this:  He chose us first, and because he chose us, we are to bear fruit.  Bearing fruit is not a condition of salvation, it is a result. And as we bear fruit for the Kingdom we are also building up treasures for ourselves in Heaven (Matthew 6:19).

As children of God and heirs to his Kingdom, I am thankful and encouraged to be about our Father’s business alongside you.  I pray that we will all make our focus the same as Jesus, to bear fruit and lay up treasures in the Kingdom so that we will all share in his magnificent reward.

“Listen, my beloved brethren: Has God not chosen the poor of this world to be rich in faith and heirs of the Kingdom which He promised to those who love Him?” James 2:5 (NIV)

Blessings,

Judy