Adoption: God's Persepective

Adoption: God’s Perspective

"Anyone who welcomes a little child like this on My behalf welcomes Me, and anyone who welcomes Me welcomes not only Me but also My Father who sent Me."

Mark 9:37

Adoption displays God’s heart for the “fatherless”.

Throughout the scriptures, God displays a tender care and firm defense of those most helpless in society—widows and orphans. We tend to think of orphans as they were an hundred years ago… children of deceased parents left to drift through the world on their own, or spend their childhood in an orphanage. While most children available for adoption today have living biological parents, they are no less orphans than those whose have lost their parents to death. Any child who is without a capable, willing, or loving adult to parent them is considered an orphan in God’s eyes, and under His divine protection. Although widows today are much more secure than they were in biblical times, children are as helpless and defenseless as they were then, and as much in need of honest, loving people to care for them. Take a look at the following scriptures and notice how passionately God cares about these children.

"You must not exploit a widow or an orphan. If you exploit them in any way and they cry out to me, then I will certainly hear their cry. My anger will blaze against you, and I will kill you with the sword. Then your wives will be widows and your children fatherless.”
Exodus 22:22-24

“Pure and genuine religion in the sight of God the Father means caring for orphans and widows in their distress and refusing to let the world corrupt you.”
James 1:27

“He ensures that orphans and widows receive justice.”
Deuteronomy 10:18

“Father to the fatherless, defender of widows—this is God, whose dwelling is holy.”
Psalm 68:5

“…don't take the land of defenseless orphans. For their Redeemer is strong; He Himself will bring their charges against you.”
Proverbs 23:10-11

Adoption exemplifies the covenant Christians have with God.

When God made His covenant with Abraham in Genesis 17, it applied only to the “seed of Abraham”, namely, the Jews. God promised that they would be His own and that He would care for them and their descendants forever. God looked down on the “orphaned” Gentiles, left without a Heavenly Father to care for them, and had compassion. He sent Jesus to pay the “adoption fee” so that He could bring them into His family. Now, anyone who believes on Jesus is a child of Abraham, and heir to the covenant of God. God adopted us into His family when we accepted His offer.

“The real children of Abraham, then, are those who put their faith in God. What's more, the Scriptures looked forward to this time when God would declare the Gentiles to be righteous because of their faith. God proclaimed this good news to Abraham long ago when he said, ‘All nations will be blessed through you.’ So all who put their faith in Christ share the same blessing Abraham received because of his faith.”
Galatians 3:7-9

“And now that you belong to Christ, you are the true children of Abraham. You are his heirs, and God's promise to Abraham belongs to you.”
Galatians 3:29

Roman law stated that a man could lawfully disown his natural born children, but could never disown his adopted ones. Adoption was a more permanent bond between parent and child than physically creating that child was. The bond that God created with us when He adopted us as His own is just as permanent. He will never disown us, though we can choose to disown Him.

Adoption is a beautiful picture of the love God has shown us.

To love that which was once considered “unloved” is the very nature of God. He loved and desired us, helpless and hopeless as we are, so much that He was willing to move heaven and earth to call us His own.

“Concerning the Gentiles, God says in the prophecy of Hosea, ’Those who were not my people, I will now call my people. And I will love those whom I did not love before.’ And, ‘Then, at the place where they were told, “You are not my people,” there they will be called “children of the living God.”’"

Romans 9:25

The end of the above verse is a strong spiritual display of the physical act of adoption. “At the place where they were told, ‘You are not my people…’ what a powerful picture of a child in need of adoption. They have been told by the world, possibly even by their own parents, that they belong to no one, and have no value, but, just as God did for us, an adoptive parent steps up and says “no, that is not true, you belong to me… you are my child, and I love you”. He took those who were not His own and made them so.

“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. So we praise God for the glorious grace he has poured out on us who belong to his dear Son. He is so rich in kindness and grace that he purchased our freedom with the blood of his Son and forgave our sins.”
Ephesians 1:5-7

Adoption represents the new life we have in Christ.

While once we lived hopeless and rejected, we now have the glorious privilege of being called “sons of God”. We have been given a new life in Christ—a life entitled to all the privileges of a child of God and the rights as His heirs. We have a life distinguished by justification and grace, and characterized by acceptance and unconditional love.

“But to all who believed Him and accepted Him, He gave the right to become children of God. They are reborn—not with a physical birth resulting from human passion or plan, but a birth that comes from God.”
John 1:12-13

 “All praise to God, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. It is by His great mercy that we have been born again, because God raised Jesus Christ from the dead. Now we live with great expectation, and we have a priceless inheritance.”
1 Peter 1:3-4

“For you have been born again, but not to a life that will quickly end. Your new life will last forever because it comes from the eternal, living word of God.”
1 Peter 1:23

“When God our Savior revealed his kindness and love, He saved us, not because of the righteous things we had done, but because of his mercy. He washed away our sins, giving us a new birth and new life through the Holy Spirit. He generously poured out the Spirit upon us through Jesus Christ our Savior. Because of His grace He declared us righteous and gave us confidence that we will inherit eternal life."
Titus 3:6-7

Adoption has been used in the Bible to fulfill God’s plan.

Several characters in the Bible were products of adoption, providing us with a biblical example and godly perspective of God’s plan at work through adoption.

The first example of adoption is in the life of Moses. In order to save his life, Moses’ mother was forced to relinquish him to the care of Pharaoh’s daughter, who, moved with compassion by the plight of the three month old, adopted him as her own child, bestowing on him the rights of a prince of Egypt. Through this adoption, Moses was prepared by God to lead the Israelite people out of captivity. The education and leadership skills he gained by his time in the palace surpassed those he would have received with his Israelite family, and undoubtedly played a role in his ability to lead the Israelites for so many years with wisdom and justice.

Samuel was adopted by Eli the priest. We know this to be the case because Elkhanah, Samuel’s biological father, was not a member of the lineage of Aaron, a necessary qualification to become a priest. The fact that Samuel did eventually serve as priest meant that he musts have come into the line of Aaron by being adopted by Eli. Samuel’s position as priest was mightily used by God in the life of Kings Saul and David, as well as the lives of the Israelite people.

Another beautiful example of adoption was in the story of Hosea and the children of Gomer. Gomer was a prostitute who had several illegitimate children. God told the prophet Hosea to marry Gomer and adopt her children as his own, as a symbol of both Israel’s unfaithfulness to God and God’s unconditional love for His people.

Mephibosheth, the grandson of King Saul, was adopted by King David. Mephibosheth’s father was Jonathan, David’s closest friend. When Saul and Jonathan were killed in battle, Mephibosheth was just a young child. His nurse, fearing that David would put to death all the surviving members of Saul’s household, fled with the child, but in her haste, she dropped him, leaving him permanently crippled in both feet.  David later searched for descendants of Jonathan and was told of Mephibosheth’s existence. David sent for the young man and adopted him, giving him a royal inheritance and granting him all the rights of one of the king’s sons. God displays to us in this story His habit of taking those who seem broken and undesirable and making them complete in Him.

Jesus Himself was adopted. He was not Joseph’s flesh and blood, but he adopted Him as his own, fulfilling the long established plan that the Savior would be a descendant of David, making His kingship legitimate. It is true that Mary was also in the line of David, but traditional lineage was traced through the father, and not the mother. The fact that Joseph was willing to adopt Jesus made Him an indisputable member of the house of David. Adoption was God’s plan for His own Son in His quest to redeem the world.

Hopelessness to Hope, Post 3

            The final definition of hopelessness is “incapable of redemption or improvement”. Let me speak to your heart a moment: you are of infinite value to your Father. He loves you with a love beyond compare, and He stops at nothing to win your heart. When we are hard-pressed by heartache and disappointment, feelings of worthlessness can begin to take root. I don’t want to get too far ahead of myself, because we are going to discuss this in a later chapter, but I do want to address it briefly because worthlessness is a by-product of hopelessness.
            One important step to regaining hope is to regain your sense of value. A person who believes they are doomed to failure will have nothing to hope for.

                        “What is the price of two sparrows—one copper coin*? But not a single sparrow can fall to the ground without your Father knowing it. And the very hairs on your head are all numbered. So don't be afraid; you are more valuable to God than a whole flock of sparrows.”                      Matthew 10:29-31

            If God is so intimately concerned with sparrows that He knows when one dies, how much more must He concern Himself with us? We are the treasure of His creation, the apple of His eye, the love of His life.

                      “You didn't choose me. I chose you. I appointed you to go and produce lasting fruit, so that the Father will give you whatever you ask for, using my name.”                                                                          John 15:16

            God hand-picked you before the beginning of time. I am not saying that God picks and chooses who will be saved. The Bible states that salvation is a gift open to all when Christ died. What I am saying is that God foreknew who would choose to accept His offer, and He began at that moment to make plans for you. Those plans were not for you to be worthless, useless, and hopeless. Those plans were for you to produce lasting fruit that will bring you into intimacy with the Father. God chose you to have a productive spirit and anything else is simply disobedience.
            If you have accepted Christ’s offer of salvation, then you are already redeemed. If you have decided to allow Him to teach you, then you are on your way to improvement.

                        “This means that anyone who belongs to Christ has become a new person. The old life is gone; a new life has begun!”               2 Corinthians 5:17                                                                                                

Hopelessness to Hope, Post 2

The second definition given for hopelessness is “not susceptible to remedy or cure”. Maybe you’ve been through all the treatments, taken all the pills, endured the painful procedures and still have had no success. Maybe you’re at the point that you feel beyond helping.

            Faith healing has been given a bad rap in the last few decades. It conjures up images of slick-haired televangelists promising a genuine miracle for a monetary donation. It is a divisive issue among Christians, yet it was a vital part of Christ’s ministry, and one that He intended us to continue. Jesus was a faith-healer… without the shellacked coiffure.

            We talked about this briefly in the chapter on Anger and Bitterness, and I promised you then that we would dive headlong into the controversial topic of faith healing. Some of you are squirming in your seats right now. The topic makes a lot of people uncomfortable, sometimes even angry for one main reason: there has been a time in every Christian’s life when our “faith” didn’t come through for us, and we can’t understand why. It’s easier to just say “God sent me a trial to endure” than to do the honest soul searching that we need to. We avoid the most important question, “What needs to change within me?”, because it might result in the realization that we need a radical transformation.

            I said before that faith—the kind of faith that cleanses lepers, opens blind eyes, and raises the dead—is not a question of mental assent. Faith is a lifestyle, lived out during the best of times so that it can be prepared for the worst of times.

             Let’s explore this topic of faith, referencing the Bible itself, because understanding true faith is a vital part of any Christian’s life, and one that I believe is terribly misunderstood.

            In Matthew 17:14-21, we read the story of the healing of a demon possessed boy.

                        At the foot of the mountain, a large crowd was waiting for them. A man came and knelt before Jesus and said, “Lord, have mercy on my son. He has seizures and suffers terribly. He often falls into the fire or into the water. So I brought him to your disciples, but they couldn't heal him."

                Jesus said, "You faithless and corrupt people! How long must I be with you? How long must I put up with you? Bring the boy here to me." Then Jesus rebuked the demon in the boy, and it left him. From that moment the boy was well.

                Afterward the disciples asked Jesus privately, "Why couldn't we cast out that demon?"

                "Because you have so little faith.” Jesus told them. "I tell you the truth, if you had faith even as small as a mustard seed, you could say to this mountain, 'Move from here to there,' and it would move. Nothing would be impossible."

 

          The disciples (and it may not have been the twelve) were unable to drive the demon from the boy, a feat they apparently should have been able to accomplish. Jesus explained to them that it was because they had so “little” faith. The term “little” here is not referring to the amount of faith they possessed. These men had plenty of confidence in the ability to drive out the demon, yet they were unsuccessful. That is because faith is not measured by quantity, but quality. Their faith was rooted in their own ability to command the demon, rather than in the source of that ability.

            Jesus then reveals to them that if they only had faith the size of a mustard seed, they could accomplish anything. This is further confirmation on the issue of quantity vs. quality. If this were not true then verse 20 would be a contradiction to itself—first, Jesus tells them their “little” faith is the problem, then He tells them the solution is to have faith the size of a tiny mustard seed? Again, Jesus was not pointing out their lack of quantity, but of quality. Their faith was insubstantial, lacking in substance, not measure.

            The next thing to notice is the comparison between faith and a seed. Seeds are amazing to think about. They are tiny in size, yet they can produce something as large as a redwood tree! A seed’s power does not come from its physical size, but from the energy and activity at work inside it. This is a great picture of faith at work in a Christian. I love the fact that Jesus choose to compare true faith with something so seemingly insignificant as a seed (which also stresses the fact that humility is a vital component in faith) rather than comparing it with something visibly powerful, like a raging river. Let’s look at these two in contrast, as we compare man-made faith (the river) to godly faith (the seed).

            First, a raging river is loud; it draws attention to itself; it awes people with its display of power and might. A seed is the opposite. It is silent, seemingly inactive. The farmer places it under the ground and no one but he knows it’s there; hidden from view, it begins its work, producing a power that would make the river jealous. Faith begins as a quiet work.

            Second, the river’s power is used to destroy. It eats away at its banks in order to satisfy its need for more. A seed creates life and grows into something that produces fruit. It replenishes the soil, rather than taking it away from where it belongs.

            Lastly, a river is ever changing. Its waters never flow through it a second time. It is unstable, undependable, and negatively reacts to storms. A seed, however, is steadfast and reliable—if you plant a mustard seed, you know what you will get from it. Most importantly, storms only cause a seed to flourish and grow.

            The mustard seed allusion reveals to us eight important truths about faith.

• Faith begins when we decide we want to allow God to develop it within us.
• Faith is planted in our hearts in humility and belief that it will produce what God says it will.
• Faith grows by fellowship with God. Just as a seed cannot grow without water, so too our faith cannot grow without the Living Water.
• Faith can only grow when we allow it to be planted inside us. It must be rooted in our spirit to produce. We cannot thrive off of someone else’s faith.
• True faith will produce visible fruit.
• Faith should never stop growing and becoming stronger and more productive. Jesus cursed the fig tree because it failed to produce fruit. (Mark 11:23-24) Faith without fruit is not true faith. We should cut it out of our lives or it will be done for us.
• Faith’s fruit should be useful to those around us, and nourish their spirit as it does our own.
• Faith produces more faith, the stronger and more mature it becomes.

                        So, we come back again to an earlier point: God has given us the power to overcome the world and all its ravages. It is the lifestyle of faith within us that gives us the authority to command demons, heal diseases, raise the dead… and change infertility. Sounds crazy, right? Well, don’t take it from me; take it from the original miracle worker, Himself:

                                    "I tell you the truth, anyone who believes in me will do the same works I have done, and even greater works…”                           John 14:12