Adoption.

I was thinking the other day on adoption.
When we think of adoption, we think of adding someone not born of our family into our family. We think of making them one of us. We think of them becoming one with who we are.
One of the definitions of adoption is "to make a child one's own."
So, when we, as believers in Christ, consider adoption, what should we be thinking?
Galatians 4:4-6 says "But when the fullness of time had come, God sent forth his Son, born of woman, born under the law, 5 to redeem those who were under the law, so that we might receive adoption as sons. 6 And because you are sons, God has sent the Spirit of his Son into our hearts, crying, “Abba! Father!” 7 So you are no longer a slave, but a son, and if a son, then an heir through God."
God sent His son to die for our sins. And through the death of Jesus, we can be called sons and heirs through God!  
Adoption is not in the physical aspect. We can call ourselves children of God, because we have been saved by His grace, through faith. It is nothing we did ourselves, it is a gift from God.
This adoption is and remains a total and utter blessing from the Lord. It was planned since the beginning of time. It was divinely inspired. We were rescued from sin by the death of Jesus, so that we might be called children of God.

Romans 8:15–16 says "For you did not receive the spirit of slavery to fall back into fear, but you have received the Spirit of adoption as sons, by whom we cry, “Abba! Father!” 16 The Spirit himself bears witness with our spirit that we are children of God."
Adoption is never one at a time. We are all adopted into this spiritual family together. One is not more important than another in the family of God. We are not above one another, because we are ALL saved by the grace of God. When we are saved, there is a blatant moral, physical and total spiritual transformation. We have thrown out our old selves and put on the new. We are no longer slaves, but a son.That is when Christ adopts us.

 

"He chose us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and blameless before him. In love he predestined us for adoption as sons through Jesus Christ, according to the purpose of his will, to the praise of his glorious grace, with which he has blessed us in the Beloved." (Ephesians 1:4-6) 

Before the foundation of the world, God chose us. 

 

How do you feel when you realize this? How do you feel when you know that you are adopted? I can say I feel overwhelmed knowing that before the world was created thousands and thousands of years ago, God had chosen to make me and form me and grow me more in the likeness of His son... He adopted me, when I was a child of wrath, as Ephesians put it, and He added me to His cloister. 

That is a blessing. 

That is a gift from God.