1. Our Birthright as God’s Sons and Daughters

World Scripture

For all who are led by the spirit of God are sons of God. For you did not receive the spirit of slavery to fall back into fear, but you have received the spirit of sonship. When we cry, “Abba! Father!” it is the Spirit himself bearing witness that we are the children of God, and if children, then heirs, heirs of God and fellow heirs with Christ, provided that we suffer with him in order that we may also be glorified with him.
Romans 8.14-17

You are the children of the Lord your God.
Deuteronomy 14.1

Anas and ‘Abdullah reported God’s Messenger as saying, “All [human] creatures are God’s children, and those dearest to God are those who treat His children kindly.”
Hadith of Baihaqi (Islam)

We are the children of our Maker And do not fear that He will kill us. We are the children of God And do not fear that He will kill.
Dinka Prayer (African Traditional Religions)

See what love the Father has given us, that we should be called children of God; and so we are.
1 John 3.1

Let the children come to me, and do not hinder them, for to such belongs the kingdom of God. Truly, I say to you, whoever does not receive the kingdom of God like a child shall not enter it.
Luke 18.16-17

I say, “You are gods, sons of the Most High, all of you.
Psalm 82.6

May the words of the prophet Asaph apply— “Ye are gods, and all of you are children of the most High,”—lest we, abusing the Father’s most indulgent generosity, render that unfettered choice which He gave us harmful rather than beneficial. May some holy aspiration enter our hearts, so that we are not content with middling things, but pant for the highest and strain to achieve them, since we can if we will.
Pico della Mirandola, On the Dignity of Man (Christianity)

Teachings of Sun Myung Moon

We are told that God is the God of love. We humans seek the supreme position where the God of love can truly love us. When we can occupy that position, God, from His position, cannot but love us. It is the place where the human heart and the divine Heart are united as one. It can only be attained when we are relating with God in a parent-child relationship. I am not referring to the relationship we have with our own father and mother who gave us birth and raised us. I am speaking about the original relationship, between the absolute God who created the cosmos and human beings had they not fallen. It is the ultimate relationship human beings can have with God: God is our Father and we are truly His sons and daughters. God intends that we attain this incredible position.
(53:286, March 4, 1972)

Once I entered a mystic state and asked God in prayer, “What is the basis of the universe?” God answered, “It is the relationship between father and child.” This does not mean our relationship with the parents who gave us birth, but to the relationship between God and human beings. What is the exact content of this relationship? There is nothing closer, nothing deeper, than when the Father and His child are one: one in love, one in life, and one in ideals. In that unity, God’s love is my love, God’s life is my life, and God’s ideal is my ideal. This is the first and original father-child relationship, where unification occurs.
(69:78, October 20, 1973)

After creating Adam and Eve, God showered true love upon them. Who initiated true love? It was not Adam and Eve. It was God, loving them as His children. It is like a newborn baby who dwells in the warmth of its parents’ love; however, it is ignorant of love and thinks that its parents exist for it alone. It knows nothing of its parents’ other concerns. God’s parental love encompasses everything, yet we first come into an awareness of God’s love just as babies come into an awareness of their parents’ love. They smile to see their parents and are grateful for their protection. This is how the love of the Parent and His children grows.
(149:312, December 21, 1986)

God created human beings out of His absolute love, to be His partners in love. This relationship forms an axis of love, linking God the Father with human beings as His sons and daughters. Is there anything higher or more precious than to be a son or daughter of God? If anything were higher, then surely human desire would aspire to attain it. But there is nothing higher. Do you think that when the omniscient and omnipotent God created Adam and Eve, He secretly reserved the highest position for Himself and made Adam and Eve to be only second best? We cannot imagine that God would do that to His children, to His partners who share absolute love with Him. As our eternal True Parent, God invested Himself one hundred percent into the creation of human beings and endowed us with the right to have equal status with Him, to participate in His work as equals, to live with Him, and to inherit from Him. God bestowed upon human beings all of His attributes.
(September 12, 2005)

God is the Father of human beings, and we are His children. Then suppose someone said to God, “Your child is more handsome than you.” Would God be happy to hear that remark, or would it make Him feel bad? If He were to feel bad, then God would be beneath the level of humans. Of course, He would be happy. That is the logic of love.
(40:343, February 11, 1971)

The horizontal love between a husband and a wife blossoms with God’s ideal love, and the fragrance of their love oscillates throughout the universe even as God’s love is added on to their love: This is the truth of the relationship of the Father with His children at its perfection.
(101:34-35, October 28, 1978)