Adoption

Bryan and I have many friends who have taken BIG steps of faith through adoption.  Some of our friends have adopted children within the United States while others have adopted internationally.  In addition to their adopted children, some of our friends also have biological children.  All of these friends will tell you that their adopted children are completely theirs.  The only difference is they don’t share stands of DNA.  To adopt means to choose or take as one’s own.  It means a person joins into a family and they become just as much a part of that family as if they had been born into it.  There is no difference.  Listen to what Galatians chapter 4 tells us, “But when the time had fully come, God sent his Son, born of a woman, born under law, to redeem those under law, that we might receive the adoption as sons. Because you are sons, God sent the Spirit of his Son into our hearts, the Spirit who calls out, “Abba, a Father.” So you are no longer a slave, but a son; and since you are a son, God has made you also an heir.”   God made a way for the Jews and the Gentiles to come into his family as sons.  Through Christ Jesus, we have salvation and we have adoption into the kingdom of God.   Mark Schultz is a famous Christian artist who was adopted.  He wrote a song called Everything to Me which tells the story of how his birth mother gave him everything by giving him up for adoption.  My favorite line in this song is, “you gave life to me”.  How true this is of our God.  Through Christ, God adopted us as sons–He gave us life; He gave us everything!