John 8:39-47 : They answered him, “Our father is Abraham.” Jesus said to them, “If you were Abraham’s children, you would do the works of Abraham. But now you seek to kill me, a man who has told you the truth, which I heard from God. Abraham didn’t do this. You do the works of your father.” They said to him, “We were not born of sexual immorality. We have one Father, God.” Therefore Jesus said to them, “If God were your father, you would love me, for I came out and have come from God. For I haven’t come of myself, but he sent me. Why don’t you understand my speech? Because you can’t hear my word. You are of your father, the devil, and you want to do the desires of your father. He was a murderer from the beginning, and doesn’t stand in the truth, because there is no truth in him. When he speaks a lie, he speaks on his own; for he is a liar, and its father. But because I tell the truth, you don’t believe me. Which of you convicts me of sin? If I tell the truth, why do you not believe me? He who is of God hears the words of God. For this cause you don’t hear, because you are not of God.”

Here, Jesus exposes the wrongful idea that you can be God’s child and go on sinning. Sinners are not God’s children. It’s not that we stop sinning entirely as Christians. It’s just that, inside, we no longer want to sin (see Romans 7:22,23). Sinners are Satan’s children because they do what he does. This does include all of us when we are born. The only way any of us can hear God is if He causes us to understand. He has to change us first before we can even hear Him.

In this passage it seems like Jesus jumps from talking about murder to talking about lying. The Bible tells us the two are connected:

Proverbs 26:28 : A lying tongue hates those it hurts; and a flattering mouth works ruin.

I John 3:15 : Whoever hates his brother is a murderer, and you know that no murderer has eternal life remaining in him.

So, you see, Jesus just connected the dots. Since a lie is hateful to those it hurts and hate is murder, a lie is murder to those it hurts. This is why it isn’t really fair to think of murderers as worse than yourself. If you have told a lie, you have acted out murder to the one that it hurt in your heart according to Jesus. None of us are without sin.

This passage also teaches us something important about evangelism. Without God’s involvement, people cannot hear the message about Jesus. Prayer is an important part of evangelism. We should ask God to open the minds of those who we want to talk to about Jesus so that they can hear the words of God.

One of the wonderful things about becoming a Christian is we become children of God:

1 John 3:1a : Behold, how great a love the Father has bestowed on us, that we should be called children of God!