I'm Adopted

The other night I was talking with some friends, when one randomly (and somewhat jokingly) asked me if I could speak Russian.  I said yes.  She laughed, but then realized I was serious. "Really?" she asked.  "Yeah, but only a few things."  That began a conversation as to how I knew any Russian at all.  I told them of how my family had at one point thought of adopting a Russian orphan.  During this process, my family learned bits and pieces of the language (my dear mother learned quite a bit) in order to be better prepared if we were able to adopt.  It didn't work out.  But that conversation with my friends caused me to think more about the idea of adoption.

Thousands of years ago, God made a wonderful promise to a man named Abram, saying He would make his descendants like the stars, and they would be set apart for God Himself.  It was so.  God had his children called Israel.  They were blessed to be called sons and daughters of God.  However, despite this wonderful blessing, they still messed up (like all humans are bound to do) and even after the Lord promised them salvation, they "pursued a law of righteousness, and have not attained it.  Why not?  Because they pursued it not by faith but as if it were by works." -Romans 9:30-32

Jesus came to show the way, but God's children were blinded.  Sadly they missed the Savior God had promised during the preceding millennia.  However, a great thing happened.  A wonderful adoption.  God's love and salvation are infinite, and He extended those blessings to those who were not his children, to us.  So through faith in Jesus we are added to God's children and share in their inheritance.

"Because those who are led by the Spirit of God are sons of God.   For you did not receive a spirit that makes you a slave again to fear, but you received the Spirit of sonship.  And by him we cry, “Abba, Father.”  The Spirit himself testifies with our spirit that we are God’s children.   Now if we are children, then we are heirs—heirs of God and co-heirs with Christ, if indeed we share in his sufferings in order that we may also share in his glory." -Romans 8:14-17

"You are all sons of God through faith in Christ Jesus, for all of you who were baptized into Christ have clothed yourselves with Christ.   There is neither Jew nor Greek, slave nor free, male nor female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus.   If you belong to Christ, then you are Abraham’s seed, and heirs according to the promise." -Galations 3:26-29

"Therefore, remember that formerly you who are Gentiles by birth and called "uncircumcised" by those who call themselves "the circumcision" (that done in the body by the hands of men)— ¹²remember that at that time you were separate from Christ, excluded from citizenship in Israel and foreigners to the covenants of the promise, without hope and without God in the world. ¹³But now in Christ Jesus you who once were far away have been brought near through the blood of Christ." -Ephesians 2:11-13

How awesome is that?  I recently watched a movie that centered around an orphan girl who was passed through the system and always resisted being adopted because she felt as though she only caused trouble for the families that she stayed with.  In the end though, the father of one family sat down with her and told her she belonged with them, that she was one of them, and she was loved.  How exciting!  We are just like that little girl, messing things up, feeling miserable because we can't do anything right, but God is a father who loves.  He sees our mistakes, our guilt, our disobedience yet provides us a way out through adoption in Christ

It should blow our minds that God should treat us like this (Everlasting Royalty).  We are not of the line of Israel, not part of God's children under Abraham, that is until Christ...  Now we too are chosen.  We are chosen for everlasting life, an inheritance not of this world but the next.  I think that's an adoption worth celebrating.