A nurse tells the story about how she was caring for a couple’s newborn first child, a son, after his cesarean birth. Since the mother was asleep under general anesthesia, she took the tiny infant directly to the newborn nursery to introduce him to his daddy. While cuddling his son for the first time, he noticed the baby’s ears conspicuously standing out from his head. He expressed his concern that some kids might make fun of him and call his son names like “Dumbo.”

The pediatrician reassured the new dad that his son was healthy, inside and out, and the ears could be easily corrected during childhood. The father still worried about his wife’s reaction to those large protruding ears. “She doesn’t take things as easily as I do,” he worried. By this time, the new mother was awake, ready to meet her precious newborn son.

So the nurse places the tiny bundle in his mother’s arms, eases the blanket back so that she could gaze upon her child for the first time. The mother takes one look at her baby’s face, looks back at her husband and gasps, “Oh no, Honey! Look! He has your ears!”

It’s a funny story that reveals a common reality when it comes to parents and their children, and particularly mothers to their daughters, and sons to their fathers…The apple usually doesn’t fall too far from the tree when it comes to fathers and their sons. The older the sons get, the more they begin to look like their dads, talk like their dads, and even think like their dads. Almost as though no matter how hard a son tries, he will eventually become his father—right down to the mannerisms he uses subconsciously.

And this shows up even when they’re children—toddlers! Where sons end up walking, and talking, and striking the same pose as fathers without even realizing it—or using eerily similar facial expressions…or sleeping the same way…eating the same way…the list goes on and on.

And the point is this: a son, in many ways, including physically and in personality and in thinking—especially when it comes to values and beliefs and morality, inevitably and invariably ends up resembling his Father. And the same is true for mothers to daughters, and vice versa from both parents, to all children.

…So that when you look at a son or daughter, what you are seeing is a reflection of their father and of their mother whom they are products of, not merely physically, but in thinking, speaking, and living.

In other words, it’s fairly easy to deduce what kind of mother or father someone has had growing up, good or bad, present or absent, or whether or not they even had one for that matter, by simply observing the personality, character, and life of the children. And this is precisely the principle and axiomatic reality that Jesus uses to pronounce a devastatingly sober indictment on the religious leaders and Jews as this intense confrontation in John chapter 8 comes to a crescendo…

 He says, “you may be physically descended from Abraham, but Abraham is not your Father, because if he was, you’d follow and obey me like he did…so you can claim God as your Father in heaven all you want, but if he truly was your Father, you’d love me—but you don’t—you hate me—and the evidence of your hatred for me your desire to kill me—exactly as your father did—who is the arch murderer and liar—you are of your Father the devil!”

And the same is true for you, for me, and for every other human being on earth.  If you want to know who your true spiritual father is, look no further than your own life, because your character, life, thoughts, desires, words, and actions, demonstrate who in fact your father truly is. The paternity test determining whether you are a child of God or the devil according to Jesus is this: Do you love him? Jesus? Do you understand his word?! Do you obey his word?

Because if you are truly a son or daughter of God and have been born again by his Spirit, you will accept the witness God has borne about his Son in Scripture and Creation and you will embrace him lovingly as Savior, and you will bend the knee willingly in obedience to him as Lord.