It may be that some are wondering, especially after my last post, why
are we still considering adoption? Why are we enduring more
potential heartache, stress, and financial burdens? I hope in
this post to give a solid answer to these questions.
However, this post will not make as much sense to you if you are not
a Christian. Even if that is the case, I would still ask and
encourage you to read on and if you have any questions about what I
say here, please get in contact with me or speak to another Christian
you trust. There is nothing more important! Now, if you
are a Christian, I hope you will take what I have to say to heart and
consider how it can affect your life and witness for Christ.
There are many reasons for our decision to adopt, but I wanted to use
this post to discuss the most important and relevant one to us as
Christians. We chose to adopt, in effect, because it is a
literal picture of our faith, of what we believe, of the gospel
itself. You see, for a Christian, the gospel, or good news, is
the central point of our faith. Everything hangs on this.
Adoption is a way for us to outwardly and vividly demonstrate this
central point. Allow me to outline why this is the case.
For anyone reading this who is not a Christian, I feel the only fair
and obvious place for me to start is to define the gospel. If
you are a Christian, well, you can never be reminded of this
beautiful truth enough.
There is one eternal God who created the world. He is perfectly
good. He is also holy, which means He cannot tolerate wrong.
When He created the world, everything was perfect, including the
first people. Read Genesis chapters 1-3 and you will see how
that fell apart by what Christians call “sin,” or doing what God
had told us not to do. Once the first people sinned, their
nature was forever altered and so was the nature of every person to
follow. Like a mutation in our DNA, the brokenness of sin was passed
on to all their descendants, to all mankind. Its “in our genes,”
so to speak. Now, because of sin, all people are capable of
every kind of evil. Sin also had other consequences such as
sickness, decay, and death.
I now possess that same marred nature. It is a nature
(attitude, perception, state of being) that goes against God, that is
an enemy of Him, that hates Him. My nature is this way because
God is good and I, with my wrong nature, am not. I cannot help
but sin, or rebel against God and His law (and as the creator of all
things, He has every right to have laws and say how His creation
should run and work and be). I am literally a slave to my sin,
to my wrong nature. I cannot fight against it, no matter how
hard I try to “be good.” I break the law of God on a daily,
even hourly, basis. Now, as I justly deserve punishment for
breaking a law of my city or state, that truth is magnified thousands
of times in regard to breaking the law of the Creator of the
universe. His determined punishment is separation from Him
forever in a place called hell.
If you are not a Christian and you are still reading, thank you.
You may be wondering how this can be called good news. Well, if it
stopped there, it most definitely would not be. But you cannot
realize something is good until you have first dealt with the bad.
God has made a way to deal with my wrong nature and with the guilt of
all the wrong I have done while acting on that nature. It is in an
incredible way that I would never have imagined on my own. You
see, He literally has given me a new nature!
He did this by sending His Son Jesus, who was fully God and yet also
became fully man. He stood in my place and took upon Himself my sin
and the sin of anyone who believes in Him. Jesus was perfect in
inward thought and outward behavior; His nature was aligned perfectly
with God's. God sent Jesus to take on himself the punishment
for sin that is rightfully mine and yours. When Jesus was
killed 2000 years ago by crucifixion, it was not random or by
chance. This was God's purpose, (2 Corinthians 5:21).
Again, if my explanation ended here, this would still not be good
news. Jesus would be dead and our situation would not be any
better. Our nature would not change and death would still await
all. But Jesus came back to life after three days (as
Christians celebrate every Easter). Jesus overcame sin and its
consequence, death, and those who believe in Him and what He did, can
inherit Jesus's nature. We (those who believe) also inherit His
resurrection life; He will return, making all things right in this
world, including ending sin and death.
So, I have been given a new heart, a new inner nature. I am
now, thanks only to Jesus, in a state of being that can love God and
desire to follow Him. I wasn't given this gift based on my own
merits or worthiness or efforts. God, seeing me while I was
still a sinner, chose to love me (while I was not loving or seeking
Him), but He chose to bring me into His kingdom and family. He chose
to adopt me. Adoption is an exact analogy used by the authors
of the Bible to explain our new state as God's children through the
gospel. (Ephesians 1:5-6 and Romans 8:15)
This point brings up an important question: are we all God’s
children? Many people assume that we are, since He created us.
But does that make us His children? When the Wright Brothers
created the first airplane, we might figuratively, in a limited
sense, call them the “fathers” of the airplane, but would we say
that they gave birth to a son? Of course not! Making something is not
the same thing as having a child. God made us, and that definitely
makes us His creation, but what gives us the right to say that we are
a child of a holy and perfect God? That is a pretty bold thing
to just assume.
Does the Bible tell us that everyone is automatically God’s child?
The truth is, it does not. Here
we need to be a little humble and realize that we do not have any
special right to a relationship with God, or to any of the blessings
that He can and does give us. We are not born God’s children
automatically. John 1:11-13 tells us:
“He came to that which was His own, but His own did not receive
Him. Yet to all who did receive Him, to those who believed in
His name, He gave the right to become children of God- children not
born of natural descent, nor of human decision nor of a husband’s
will, but born of God.”
Pay attention to what the verse says. He (that is Jesus), came to His
own, which means that He came to us, to humanity, to the ones He had
created. But we didn’t know Him. Most people rejected Him.
They refused to accept the Son of God the way He came. They wanted
something different. But to those who did recognize Him, and who
believed in Him and what He had done, He gave them the right to
become God’s children. If a child of God is something we
become, then it seems clear that it is not something we
already are. Even if we were good and pure, God does not owe
us this right. We can be good, obedient, and loyal creations without
ever becoming sons. But we are not even that! We are broken, sinful,
and rebellious! Yet God has chosen, in His marvelous love, to make
those who will repent and believe in Jesus Christ into something more
than we could have dreamed! Without Christ, we can never be God’s
child. Our hearts are so turned away from God and our very will is so
set against Him, that we cannot even be good creations! But if we
have come to truly realize and admit our need for a savior and if we
are willing to surrender ourselves and our lives to Christ, then
through what Christ has done for us, we can become a child of God!
When Luke and I decide to adopt, we don't go looking for a child that
is “lovable.” We don't seek to try and find the most beautiful
child or the most talented or the most well behaved. We choose
to love a child, whatever their background and personality; it is an
act of the will, a choice, not driven or led by emotion or lack
thereof, and not rooted in something more especially deserving in
this child than in so many others whom we have not adopted.
This is such a picture of what God has done for us in Christ.
We are the orphan, who have no idea that there is something far
better than what we already have or that there is another entirely
different way to live. For that matter, we don't even realize
what we are lacking by not being in God's family. We would be
content to go on living in our sin, with all its consequences.
We are not just indifferent toward God, we are enemies. God
chose to love me, even when I was in this state of warfare with Him.
Let's look at this from another angle. When a child is adopted,
the child can’t go looking for the family on his own. He isn’t
able to buy the family’s acceptance. He has no great gift or skill
to offer them. The family desiring to adopt comes and finds him
wherever he is. That family seeks him out and offers him
stability, belonging, support and love; he becomes a true part of
that family. On his own he was an orphan, but through the decision of
a family that was not his own, he has now become a son. His status
has been raised significantly. He did not earn it. He could not
demand it. The family did not have to do it! They could have
adopted someone else, or no one at all! Yet, they choose to love a
child that is not their own, and to invite him or her into their
family, and to allow him to become their own child. In this way, the
orphan who had no one and belonged nowhere now has a family, a home,
someone to support him, and a place that he belongs.
This is what happens to us if we repent of our sin and believe in
Jesus Christ. We are no longer a slave to our sinful self, but we
become a legitimate child of God through Christ. Though we were
criminals against God’s law with cold and disobedient hearts from
birth that refused to love and obey God, and though we lived and
acted every day as slaves to sin and disobedience and were owned by
our selfish desires and evil actions, God chose to love us anyway,
and to adopt as His own sons and daughters those who believe in Jesus
Christ and accept that He is their master. Jesus takes away our guilt
under God’s law, and God gives us the heart of an obedient Son, the
very Spirit of Jesus Christ within us! Having bought us from our
master, Sin, He does more than simply make us His own slaves.
Instead, He chooses to adopt us as His children! We no longer have to
live in fear, we are no longer slaves of a cruel master, but children
of a loving God! This is what the Bible is explaining in
Galatians 4:4-7:
“But when the completion of the time came, God sent His
Son, born of a woman, born under the
law, to redeem those under the law, so that we might
receive adoption as sons. And because you are sons, God
has sent the Spirit of His Son into our hearts,
crying, ‘Abba, Father!’ So you are no longer a
slave, but a son; and if a son, then an
heir through God.”
Luke and I are trying, although very imperfectly, to be a model of
the love of God in the lives of our children. We want them to
see the gospel lived out in our lives, in every way we can.
Adoption is a way for us to show them, and the people around us, a
small picture of what the gospel looks like. Just as I am so
happy that Lexy and Jon have been adopted into our family, I desire
even more for them to know the one who created them. Our kids
know that they have been adopted by us (as they grow older, they will
come to understand more what this means), and I am hoping that, as
they come to understand their earthly adoption, they will one day
come to understand what heavenly, spiritual adoption means. I
pray this for everyone who reads this!
