I wonder sometimes how people really view their relationship with God. I wonder if they can see clearly the implications of the Gospel (Good News). Over the last 3 years, I have experienced an explosion of faith and love that I previously did not know. It is my desire that other people come to a real understanding of the Gospel (Good News) and see it for what it is.
One of the most powerful aspects that is often missed in the Gospel (Good News) is something called adoption. Most everyone knows what adoption is. Not everyone has had an experience with it though. Let me share with you.
My wife, Brittany, was adopted when she was only 3 months old. When we first started dating I was very aware of this because I had never known anyone who was adopted. So I have learned a lot about how the process works at an emotional level. To start drawing parallels, a lot of Christians celebrate and remember the day they got saved. Her family celebrates not only her birthday but also her adoption day. It is the day she was born into their family. Really, it is the day, in their eyes, that she was born.
The connection into the family was immediate. The day they got her, as they drove home, her dad reached back to touch her and she grabbed a hold of his finger and held it all the way home. You see, the idea of adoption is sort of like a transplant. You bring in a foreign object to a host and hope that it becomes naturally grafted in. Parents receive a random child and they become family.
She is half Mexican and half Polish. Her family is German blooded with a previously Amish background. They were not similar. But in an adoption a person's past is erased, especially in a closed adoption. They are brought into a family, get a new name (first and last), a new father and mother, new siblings, and sometimes they get a new language. It is really a new life. They experience a love they haven't had before.
It is like it says in the book of Hosea, "I will show my love to the one I called 'Not my loved one.' I will say to those called 'Not my people,' 'You are my people.'
This is the idea on hand: We were formerly not in a good family. Really, we were orphans. Most orphans around the world have no hope of experiencing a family. But God wants YOU to be in His family...forever.
Read Galatians 4:4-7 (MSG) - But when the time arrived that was set by God the Father, God sent his Son, born among us of a woman, born under the conditions of the law so that he might redeem those of us who have been kidnapped by the law. Thus we have been set free to experience our rightful heritage. You can tell for sure that you are now fully adopted as his own children because God sent the Spirit of his Son into our lives crying out, "Papa! Father!" Doesn't that privilege of intimate conversation with God make it plain that you are not a slave, but a child? And if you are a child, you're also an heir, with complete access to the inheritance.
Just like my wife grabbed a hold of her daddy right when she was adopted, our spirits, which are from Jesus, cling to the Father (Daddy).
Sonship
This brings me to a new question: Have you ever wondered why Jesus came as God's son? Why wasn't he just God? Or maybe the One sent from God?
The passage we just read clarifies this. Notice that "...God sent the Spirit of his Son into our lives..."
God's idea was for us to not just be his friend, not just "a man after God's own heart", but His children. Ephesians 1:5 (MSG) - Long, long ago he decided to adopt us into his family through Jesus Christ. (What pleasure he took in planning this!)
Look at Matthew 3:17 when God said, "This is my son, whom I love; with him I am well pleased."
Please get this: God sent the spirit of His son, whom He loves and is well pleased with, into your life so that you could relate to the Father (Daddy) in the same way Jesus did.
The power of the knowledge that YOU are in God's family will drastically change how you view Jesus (Your Brother), God (Your Father), and yourself (You are in the family!). Family is God's idea and plan for the whole world.
The idea that God would ignore you after He went out of His way to adopt you into His family is as heinous as parents who would go through the 9 months it takes to have a baby and then just decide they want to leave it at the hospital.
My friend, Levi, and I were talking about these things as we were studying through the Book of Galatians in our Life Group. He is the father of a 2 year old, Libby. He said, "I love Libby so much. I would do anything for her. It makes me realize how much God loves us as his children."
I hope this is a new perspective for you. If you already had this view, I hope that it has deepened your understanding and love of/for God. It is time to let go of what you thought you knew about God and began to take a hold of God's true nature as your Father. All of this is possible only by the Gospel (Good News) of Jesus. Amen.
This song is beautiful.
Excellent piece Jp. I just spoke on adoption two weeks ago. A familiar term in everyday life, a fairly foreign term in spiritual circles. As important as all the "new" intricacies, is the closure with the "old" connections. The old debt, and nature. and the severing of any further ability to inherit from the old family (which spiritually speaking is a wonderful thing.)
ReplyDeleteThanks for helping people grasp their new identity in Christ. Bless you.