ADOPTED!

It is God the Father’s GOOD PLEASURE to destine you as His child. His choice was not in regret, misgivings, or doubt. His choice of YOU, was according to His great DELIGHT! You are His “wish come true”! You are His noble desire! God’s dream was to make you His child!

“…[the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ] having predestined us to adoption as sons by Jesus Christ to Himself, according to the good pleasure of His will, to the praise of the glory of His grace…” ~ Ephesians 1:5-6a

Last week we explored the incredible reality that God chose you in Jesus before the creation of the world! Now we see that He legalizes your legitimacy as His child through adoption.

It was our sin condition whereby we were formerly orphans, estranged from God. Without the Spirit of Jesus, we were at enmity with God (Romans 8:5-11). Clothed in orphan rags, we were spiritually destitute, malnourished, filthy, abused, suffering, and without hope in this world. Our nature was rebellious and self-serving. Whether our sin nature was manifest through our life-stye and choices or was hidden in religious pretense or human kindness, the fact remains that an unregenerate nature is alienated from God – an orphan on the streets of sin.

BUT when you recognize the great kindness and mercy of God, realize a benevolent Heavenly Father chose you to be His child, and respond to the Father’s gift of Jesus, His Spirit entwines with yours in perfect ONENESS. A legal change of status is filed in eternity! Your name is preserved in His Book of Life. The legal handwriting of ordinances filed against you because of sin has been canceled. You are no longer an orphan, but His adopted child. Not an outcast. Not a stranger. You dwell with His family inside the walls of His royal kingdom and feast at His banqueting table, clothed with the righteousness of Christ!

We have obtained a position of sonship along with the dignity of that relationship!

The Spirit of Jesus inside of you (Holy Spirit) is the very Spirit of adoption. He is God’s legal witness affirming your “sonship”.  And from this treasured status, we can address JEHOVAH personally and affectionately. “Abba, Father”. The name Abba invokes both intimacy and obedience. As a child, it is my greatest desire to listen, learn, and follow Him because I love Him and I am secure in His love for me.

“For as many as are led by the Spirit of God, these are sons of God. For you did not receive the spirit of bondage again to fear, but you received the Spirit of adoption by whom we cry out, “Abba, Father.” 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.” ~ Romans 8:14-17 (See also Galatians 4:4-6)

Shortly before Jesus went to the cross to make adoption possible, He promised His disciples:

“And I will pray the Father, and He will give you another Helper, that He may abide with you forever— the Spirit of truth, whom the world cannot receive, because it neither sees Him nor knows Him; but you know Him, for He dwells with you and will be in you. I will not leave you orphans; I will come to you.” ~ John 14:16-18

He did come to them! And He came to me and to you too! Adopted! His child!

You are an heir (with Jesus) of the divine Kingdom of God. You have all the rights, privileges, and responsibilities of family. You bear His name. Your genetics have transformed, and you come from a new bloodline. You hail, not from the world, but from a Heavenly Kingdom! Sealed by the Holy Spirit and adopted into the Royal Family of Jehovah, King of Kings and Lord of Lords!

We have obtained a position of sonship along with the dignity of that relationship!

Our adoption is a legal position that has endowed us with an intimate personal relationship with God and empowered us to love and trust Him through obedience.

This is a mind-blowing reality! Family intimacy with the God of all creation!

During a desperate time when I was struggling to accept the love of God, I was asked, “Are you more comfortable with God or Jesus?”

My reply was quick and decisive. “Jesus, of course.” God seems harsh and judgmental.

Approaching God felt intimidating, shameful, and awkward. But Jesus, on the other hand, was kind, understanding, and approachable. I didn’t have the kind of trouble interacting with Jesus as I did with the Father. And “the” Father was more comfortable than MY Father.

The scripture that helped me see the truth about God is Jesus’ words in John 14:9, “He who has seen Me has seen the Father; so how can you say, ‘Show us the Father’?”

Do you want to understand the character and personality of God? Then look at Jesus! He is the human manifest representation of ALL God is!

Jesus went on to say, “The words that I speak to you I do not speak on My own authority; but the Father who dwells in Me does the works. Believe Me that I am in the Father and the Father in Me…”

So, here it is! My life-changing nugget of truth. I am MY HEAVENLY FATHER’S chosen, beLOVED and appointed son. I bear His name, I share His bloodline, and I carry His family resemblance.

Being a child means I manifest His likeness, His character, His qualities!

It is the authority and credibility of His name by which I operate in this world.

And this is what the second half of Ephesians 1:6a is referring to. Here it is in the Amplified version:

“[So that we might be] to the praise and the commendation of His glorious grace (favor and mercy)”

As adopted children of our Heavenly Father, our life is like an applause to our Father’s glorious GRACE!

His grace is the revelation of your intimacy with God and the supernatural power to walk in obedience to the Father, just like Jesus.

As a prince in Father’s royal kingdom, I have wandered. Forgetting WHO I really am, I get lost and eventually find myself on the streets where I once lived as an orphan. I have somehow donned my old tattered, dirty clothes. I look like an orphan again. BUT I’m not – that’s the truth! I am still a son of the King. If I continue to doubt this, I will persist in behaving like an orphan – grumpy, complaining, bitter, discontent, self-serving. No one will recognize the GRACE of the King of Kings if I grovel on the streets like an orphan.

Conversely, the healing, transforming GRACE of God will be on display with power to change lives when I walk in the identity of WHO I really am – BLESSED! CHOSEN! ADOPTED!

“Beloved Child”