Last week we talked about God as a Father, how nothing we could ever do will change who our biological parents are, and how God is a ‘Father’ to all of humanity because He was a key part of our creation.
What about adoption? Some children don’t stay with their biological parents, and instead grow up in homes with parents who adopted them after they were born.
When looking at the Bible, we see cases of adoption in the lives of some famous Biblical heroes.
- Moses was adopted by Pharaoh’s daughter
- Esther was adopted by her uncle Mordecai
- Joseph ‘adopted’ Jesus and raised Jesus like his own son.
It is through the lens of adoption, that we can see God’s plan for our spiritual lives unfold. Paul talks a lot about this in several of his letters to the New Testament churches.
“God sent Him to buy freedom for us who were slaves to the law, so that He could adopt us as His very own children. And because we are His children, God has sent the Spirit of His Son into our hearts, prompting us to call out, ‘Abba, Father.’ Now you are no longer a slave but God’s own child. And since you are His child, God has made you His heir.” (Galatians 4:5–7 NLT).
“God decided in advance to adopt us into His own family by bringing us to Himself through Jesus Christ. This is what He wanted to do, and it gave Him great pleasure.” (Ephesians 1:5 NLT).
God wants to adopt us into His family so that we can become His children and grow spiritually into men and women who show God’s character to others. God has called all of humanity to be His heirs, but not everyone will accept the call.
It is just as Jesus depicted in His parable in Luke 14:16–24 and Matthew 22:1–14 where He describes a wedding feast and those who were invited first had other priorities; so instead, the Master [God] extends the invitation to everyone who wants to come. This wedding feast is the union between Jesus and the ‘church’.
This adoption into God’s family is something even more special when we dig deeper. It is one thing to have a child (something that hasn’t happened in my life yet), but it is a completely different thing to ‘choose’ a child. Many children are born who were unplanned, unwanted, and/or unloved. Instead, I don’t know of any examples where parents chose to adopt a child and went through the procedure to formalize the adoption, who then did not choose the child to become a member of their family.
In this way, adoption can be even more special than being in a traditional home with one’s birth parents.
I am aware that adoption has a string of emotional damage that it leaves in the mind and heart of the child and it is difficult to heal these deep wounds. However, because we are all alive, in one sense God has chosen us. If there was no purpose for us being alive, we would not be alive.
I am not suggesting that all the evil that has happened was part of God’s plan, but instead, that with the opportunity for exponential good to happen in the world, there is also the possibility of the same extreme happening for evil. That is the challenge behind the freedom of choice that God has given to us.
In conclusion, some children were chosen by their parents before they were born; other children were chosen by their parents and adopted after they were born; and ALL children are continually chosen by God from the moment they entered His mind!
Thoughts, reactions, or other feedback? Join the conversation by leaving a comment!
~Cam