When we went to church on Good Friday I couldn’t help but think about how much adoption reflects the heart of God. It has been said “Adoption is the Visible Gospel”. So what do you see when you look at adoption? Adoption starts out with two people’s hearts being drawn to love and raise a child that does not come from their own bodies. A child who is not automatically part of their family by birth yet the love for this child to become part of their family is so strong it drives them to pursue adoption.
So far in this adoption process we have gone through much excitement and disappointment, days of chasing and filling out paperwork, meetings where we reveal the inmost details of our lives to a total stranger and countless hours of praying and waiting for that day when our baby finally comes home. This has been the hardest thing we have ever gone through thus far in our lives but it all comes with the joy of knowing our baby is coming home after the long days and month of working and waiting. When we do finally meet them we can only imagine the joy and love we will feel to know that the child we did all this paperwork and adoption process for is finally part of our family. They will have gone from an orphan with no hope for the future to a child of ours with all of our love ready and available to them all the time. They will be our son or daughter!
When we celebrate Easter tomorrow it is the story of our adoption into God’s family. God created us in his image and with the desire to have a personal relationship with us. Yet because of Adam’s and Eve’s disobedience to God sin entered the world and our intimacy with God was cut off. We were all suddenly separated from God. God gave us the 10 commandments however we have all broken them and therefore have all sinned against God and we needed a payment for our sin. Our sin caused us to no longer be children of God, we had become enemies of God. Our holy and perfect God could not be intimate with a sinful people. So there needed to be a solution for our sin. Before Jesus came there was blood sacrifice of an animal that God deemed acceptable to be the payment of sin. The living blood of that animal was spilled out to represent what should be our death. God says “without the shedding of blood there is no forgiveness.” Hebrews 9:22. God also tells us “The wages of sin is death” Romans 6:23.
But don’t despair there is hope the second part of that verse says “but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.” God knew we couldn’t keep the law (the 10 commandments) and there needed to be a final payment for our sin. So God came to the earth in the form of a man Jesus and he was the life that died for us once and for all. His blood spilled out and body nailed to the cross was what we deserved, yet he paid the sin debt for us so we don’t have to. And on Easter we get to celebrate that after being dead for three days Jesus rose from the grave and conquered sin and death. He now sits at the right hand of God and will come again to judge the living and the dead.
The good news: through Jesus God adopted us into His family! We no longer are orphans condemned to Hell but now have a choice to chose Jesus as our savior and enter into God ‘s eternal family. When we accept Jesus as the payment for our sin and ask God to forgive our sins we are automatically accepted into God’s family and become his son or daughter. We gain access to heaven not by our works but by his grace, the grace of God suffering and dying for sinners so we can have life. God takes us, people who once were without a name, hope or future and makes us his children! He gives us a hope here on earth that we can finally have a personal relationship with God and future of eternal life in Heaven with Him! If adoption doesn’t display this Gospel of God’s love for us I don’t know what does!
As I searched for a video to explain this better God couldn't have been more faithful in bringing this! Check it out, and put your thinking cap on.
"I will no leave you as orphans; I will come to you." John 14:18 Happy Easter!
