Several years ago friends of mine decided to add to their family by adoption. It was a very long process, but eventually they adopted a child and it has been wonderful to observe that child growing up and flourishing in their family. When you adopt a child into a family, they have exactly the same legal rights, status and position in the family, and the same emotional place within their parents hearts as a child who was born into it. They are absolutely and without question forever a member of the family.
The gospel of Christ promises that when we believe in Jesus we are ‘adopted’ into a family. I don’t mean ‘just’ joining the church family either; I mean being adopted into the family of God.
Ephesians chapter 1: 4-6 describes coming to Christ in these terms:
For he chose us in him before the creation of the world to be holy and blameless in his sight. In love he predestined us for adoption to sonship through Jesus Christ, in accordance with his pleasure and will – to the praise of his glorious grace, which he has freely given us in the One he loves. (Eph1:4-6)
That’s one of the promises that we hold out to people when we share the gospel. Many people today are struggling with questions of identity, struggling to know who they really are, where they come from, where they’re going, and who they belong to. Many despair that they might never find answers to those questions, and don’t know where to look for them.
The Christian doctrine of adoption means that when we go into this world to people longing for answers to those questions we can say, “Come to Christ, come home to a family, a family in which you can call God Father”. “Abba” was the most intimate, relational term for a father in the New Testament era, and Jesus says that it is a term we can use for our Heavenly Father! That is because we are adopted into the family of God when we come to Christ. Fully, completely and definitively.
What an amazing offer to bring to a sad, broken and lonely world: Come home to Christ and be fully adopted into your ‘forever family’ by the perfect Father.
Prayer: Father God, thank you that in Christ you chose me for adoption into your family. Please help me welcome many, many more people into our home together, knowing you will graciously adopt anyone who calls on your name. Amen.