My wife and I were reflecting just the other day about a young lady in our church that was adopted by a wonderful couple in our church. We were blessed to have a small part in the adoption about ten years ago. We knew a Deaf person who had become pregnant and did not want to keep her baby. We also knew of this couple in our church that had been pursuing the avenue of adoption. We felt that the situation the baby was being born in would not be the greatest if she remained with her birth mother. We also knew this couple from our church to be of very high character. We praised God back then, and we are praising God today to see this young lady become a godly person in a great home!
If you are saved, you have been adopted into God’s family. Jesus described us very accurately this way … “Ye are of your father the devil, and the lusts of your father ye will do. He was a murderer from the beginning, and abode not in the truth, because there is no truth in him. When he speaketh a lie, he speaketh of his own: for he is a liar, and the father of it” (John 8:44). We were born in sin, and we learned the tricks and trades of sin from the day we began to breath. We had no hope of ever escaping the depths of our sin, until Jesus stepped in to save us.
Just like the girl I described above, we could see very little hope of a good outcome. But, just like the girl above, Jesus stepped in to remove us out of the depths of our situation, and He gave us a completely new home and hope. We were children of the Devil … the father of liars … and we had no hope in and of ourselves to remove ourselves from that condition. Praise God! Jesus came to us when we could not reach to Him! Jesus did for us what we could not do for ourselves! Jesus paid the price for sin that we could never pay because it was a sinless life! When I read this verse in John 8 today, it reminded me of how good I have had it as a believer since Jesus rescued me. I don’t deserve to have a mansion built for me … or to walk on streets of gold … or to cross through a gate made of a pearl. I deserve an eternal separation from God and an eternity crying out in anguish from the pit of Hell. I have been adopted by the God of the universe! I have been removed from the auction block of sin (like we discussed early in a devotional). I have been changed from the son of a liar, to become a son of God! I have literally passed from death unto life! What a great truth! I want to thank God toady for coming to rescue me. I cannot help but want to tell everyone about the transformation He has made in my life. I am His child, and He is my Father!