CREATED, CALLED, CHOSEN June 2023
“I will praise You, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made; marvelous are Your works, and that my soul knows very well.” Psalm 139:14
I have been thinking a lot about what adoption means lately. My youngest daughter and her husband chose to pursue an adoption in order to grow their family. They started the adoption process over a year ago. It has been an anxious, hopeful, waiting time.
Finally they were contacted that an expectant mother chose them to adopt her baby. They were chosen out of many other hopeful families. So much hoping. So much anticipation. So many prayers.
Through the waiting I would pray with my daughter and remind her to hang onto hope and faith that God is in control. He knows the desire of your heart. He is bringing your best to completion.
The concept of adoption is very real to God and His plan for His people. Mary was chosen by God to be the mother of Jesus, God’s Son. An angel from the Lord assured Joseph that he should marry Mary and become Jesus’ earthly father.
So Jesus was loved and raised by Mary and Joseph. Then He fulfilled the call on His life. He taught, He healed, He discipled, He blessed, and He gave His life for us. Then He rose from the dead and sent the Holy Spirit for us. He left us with a job to do…to share the love of God and take the good news into all the world.
In Galatians 4:4-6 we see God’s plan for our adoption into His family.
4 But when the fullness of the time had come, God sent forth His Son, born of a woman, born under the law, 5 to redeem those who were under the law, that we might receive the adoption as sons. 6 And because you are sons, God has sent forth the Spirit of His Son into your hearts, crying out, “Abba, Father!”
“Abba” is the Aramaic (Hebrew language) word for Father
God has always wanted His creation to have fellowship with Him, just like an earthly father wants fellowship with his children. God created each of us to spend time with Him, to know Him, and to communicate with Him. When we worship and praise Him in song or spend time in His Word and study, we are spending time with our Father.
When we spend time in prayer and intersession, we are communicating with our Father.
When we receive Christ as our Lord and Savior, we are called new creations. We have been born again. This is the spiritual birth that Jesus talks about in John 3:1-5: God wants us to experience the new birth and be part of His family.
We are like a new born baby needing to be fed, cared for, loved, nourished, and taught. John 1:12 says, “But as many as received Him, to them He gave the right (authority) to become children of God, to those who believe in His name:”
One day during the waiting I received a call from a very tearful daughter questioning if this adoption would really take place. We prayed together and thanked the Lord for peace and trust and faith in Him. Then it was the very next day that my daughter heard from the birth mother and plans were set.
The day arrived. Our daughter and son-in-law went to the hospital where after the baby was born she was placed in their arms. A baby girl.
I flew back to Nashville. I was there to see my 3 year old grandson meet his new baby sister. He proudly wore his Big Brother t-shirt. So I have a new granddaughter who was chosen and adopted and forever part of our family.
Children are a gift from God. And our heavenly Father teaches us how to be the best parents. It is amazing! We are adopted and chosen by God. We are His children.
Ephesians 1:3-6. 3 Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places in Christ, 4 just as He chose us in Him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and without blame before Him in love, 5 having predestined us to adoption as sons by Jesus Christ to Himself, according to the good pleasure of His will, 6 to the praise of the glory of His grace, by which He made us accepted in the Beloved.