ADOPTION
Abraham Lincoln once passed a slave block and saw a young girl being sold. His heart melted. He put up a bid, and eventually she belonged to him. After he paid the money, he told her, “You are now free.” “What does that mean?” she asked. “It means that you’re free,” Lincoln answered. “Does that mean I can be anything I want to be?” “Yes, you can be anything you want to be.” “Does that mean I can go anywhere I want to go?” “Yes, you can go anywhere you want to go.” With tears in her eyes, the young girl looked up at Lincoln and said, “Then I’ll go with you.” God did that to us all. He set us free. More than that, God adopted us and made us His own child.
Before we were adopted into the family of God we were the spiritual slaves of sin and Satan. We were on the auction block dressed in rags and did not know our self-worth. But Christ has come and set us free from our past and given us a hope for the future.
Here are beautiful verses that tell our story.
Galatians 4:4-5, “ But when the set time had fully come, God sent his Son, born of woman, born under the law, to redeem those under the law, that we might receive adoption to sonship” (NIV)
Adoption is not something we did for ourselves but something that God has done for us.
1 John 3:1 How great is the love the Father has lavished on us, that we should be called children of God! And that is what we are! Through adoption, we experience his love. He had no reason to save us, to forgive us, or to adopt us. God did all three because of His love” (NIV).
How impressive that us formal slaves can look up in heaven and say, ”Our Father.” That is the language of an adopted son not a slave.
Emperors of Rome such as Augustus, Tiberius, Caligula, Nero, Trajan, and Hadrian, were “adopted.” That meant that they had the same privileges aa a biological son and were heirs to the fortune of their adopter..
Being born physically into royalty was a wonderful thing. But it was all so temporal. In one day you lost it all.
Adoption is wholly and utterly an act of God’s grace. In New Testament times adoption took place amongst the rich and powerful, With no heir to pass their wealth and power on to they sought out someone who was healthy talented and worthy to continue the family name.
On the contrary God out of his love for us does just the opposite. He adopts Whosoever Will. Whosoever will repent of the sins and come to him for salvation. Entrance into his family is only through adoption. . From every nation tongue and tribe. From every color and rank and file of society they are welcome
Today, you can adopt a child over the internet. You can more conveniently go to an orphanage. But nothing much has changed. People who adopt still make their choices based on appearance, intellect and good health. Rarely does a person get chosen if their chart shows they are disabled or have a low I.Q.
But God thinks different. He loves the unlovely. He did not choose you because you were prettier. stronger, more talented than anyone else He chose you because you reached up to him and he reached down to you.
What greater thought can you think, what greater gift can you receive that as a former slave to sin and shame you are now an adopted child of God. It is such an out of this world concept of love that even angels sing about it. No telescope can reach its height, no soundwaves can measure its depths.
As wonderful as it all is hear this, You are not automatically adopted into the family of God. It is one of the major lies of that Satan. Yes, we are all God’s creation physically but not so spiritually.
The Holy Spirit must spiritually re-create us and adopt us into the family of God.
As the Apostle John puts it, “ You must be born again,” That is spiritually, from above, by the Holy Spirit. The apostle Paul said, “For in Christ Jesus you are all sons of God, through faith” (Galatians 3:26). We only become an adopted child of God “through faith” in Christ. There is no alternative route to heaven. Christ alone in the way the truth, the life.”
Two thousand years later God’s promises still hold, “Whoever comes to Me I will by no means cast out.” (John 6:37).
“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. What on this earth can compete with the thrill of being adopted as a full and coequal heir with Christ Jesus (Rom. 8:16-17).
Adoption is not a right it is a privilege.
Our adoption into the family of God came at a very high price, an infinite price. A price that none of us were capable of paying. Let us walk worth of our purchased adoption until that day when Jesus comes and we are one with the family of God in heaven, forever.
In The Name Above Every Name,
Dr. Robert Bryant