Adopted by God

Ephesians 1:3-14

Praise for Spiritual Blessings in Christ

³ Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in the heavenly realms with every spiritual blessing in Christ. ⁴ For he chose us in him before the creation of the world to be holy and blameless in his sight. In love ⁵ he^[a] predestined us for adoption to sonship^[b] through Jesus Christ, in accordance with his pleasure and will— ⁶ to the praise of his glorious grace, which he has freely given us in the One he loves. ⁷ In him we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of sins, in accordance with the riches of God’s grace ⁸ that he lavished on us. With all wisdom and understanding, ⁹ he^[c] made known to us the mysteryof his will according to his good pleasure, which he purposed in Christ, ¹⁰ to be put into effect when the times reach their fulfillment—to bring unity to all things in heaven and on earth under Christ.

¹¹ In him we were also chosen,^[d] having been predestined according to the plan of him who works out everything in conformity with the purpose of his will, ¹² in order that we, who were the first to put our hope in Christ, might be for the praise of his glory. ¹³ And you also were included in Christ when you heard the message of truth, the gospel of your salvation. When you believed, you were marked in him with a seal, the promised Holy Spirit, ¹⁴ who is a deposit guaranteeing our inheritance until the redemption of those who are God’s possession—to the praise of his glory.

Adopted

Pastor Brad has been talking about adoption at church and our church body is really on fire for adoption. Since I am an imaginative person when I think of God adopting us in I think of Brad’s children or some of the other families children. How amazing it must of felt to been adopted by these wonderful loving spiritual parents. To feel like you were abandoned and then found! To feel lost and unloved, but also know that these two people loved you so much; even when you did not come from their womb, enough to bring you into their family and call you theirs! They have to have that feeling of there must be something special about me for them to want me. There is something special about every person on this Earth. We are all His hands and feet and we all deserve to feel that love and security. God offers us that through Jesus. Through Jesus we can be in God’s family. He can be our father our Abba. 

Abundantly

I like to read the scripture in other versions to see something else pops out at me. In the message bible something did.

 V7-10 And not just barely free, either. Abundantly free! He thought of everything, provided for everything we could possibly need, letting us in on the plans he took such delight in making. 

Not just free; Abundantly free! Not just saved Abundantly saved! Not just covered abundantly covered! I like the thought of that. I used to say I just want to be  happy; now I expect to be abundantly happy because that is what God says I deserve. I should expect to be abundantly happy because He has provided everything I could possibly need to get there. He has mapped out how to obtain that happiness in The Word.

He has His eyes on Us

^11-12 It’s in Christ that we find out who we are and what we are living for. Long before we first heard of Christ and got our hopes up, he had his eye on us, had designs on us for glorious living, part of the overall purpose he is working out in everything and everyone.

As a parent now I think about me having to watch my children struggle. Could you imagine watching your children make wrong decisions after another; degrade themselves, think badly about themselves, or be hurtful to others?! Everything we teach our kids not to be …..  and imagine a brick wall between them and you….. Too tall to climb.. to strong to bash through….to deep to dig under… Just with a peep hole for us to whisper through. Please come back to me… please you know this is wrong… come to me my child. All the while all you want to do is hold your child… even though they have been doing so much wrong… you just want to stroke their hair… look into their eyes and tell them you love them and no matter what they do you always will.

How hard this must be for our God…. To see all we do wrong, but not be able to get through to us. But when He does!!!!

Think back or forward to when your kids were in grade school. Mine is n 1st grade and when they walk out that door of their classroom and they look around for you and BAM there’s mom!!!! Her eyes light up and she comes running; THAT is the most amazing feeling ever. To jump on me and give me a hug and tell me as fast as she can about her entire day. I wonder if this is how God feels when we come running to Him?