Adopted by God

 

        When you become a Christian, you are adopted into God's family.  Jesus makes you righteous.  You become a new person with responsibilities of the title you now hold.  However, God is the one that takes on the responsibility of you as His child.  It is a binding commitment.  He will never change His mind.  Once you are His, you are always His.  You will never be rejected by God.

    When God takes responsibility of you He does so as a good father.  That means that He will never stop loving you, but He will also discipline you when you do wrong.  He will not ignore you or pretend that you are just acting out.  He will show you His love in a way that will protect you in the long run.  He prepares you for the future and helps you grow into the Christian you need to be to go out into the world.

    Being adopted by God changes you.  It changes every aspect of your life.  It gives you an eternal identity and a certain status to go with that identity.  He gives you an eternal inheritance.  You get to be a part of a functional family.  It won't be complete on this side of Heaven, but you do get a feel for it.  

    Some of the blessings you get now is complete access to God.  He listens and wants to give you good things in life.  When you pray it is just a conversation with your father.  You can be honest, vulnerable, and truthful about everything without hesitation of judgement.  However, that does not mean when He replies it is always what you want to hear.  Tell Him your joys, sorrows, hurts, and everything else in between.  He wants to hear it all.

    Being adopted by God means you have freedom unlike the children of the world.  You get to learn what real love is.  You are no longer chained to your sins.  You have the Holy Spirit to guide, teach, and redirect you misguided ideology.  He helps you defeat temptation.  He understands you in a way no one else in the world ever will.

    The adoption is all up to you.  You can choose to believe and follow Jesus becoming a brother or sister to him or you can reject the only real truth and go your own direction.  You don't know everything when you first become a Christian.  There will be growing pains.  It is a lifelong journey to develop that relationship.  It comes with a lot of ups and downs and mistakes along the way.  Just remember that God loves you no matter what.  Hold onto your joy and hope while you find strength in your relationship with God.

    No matter what your biological family dynamic is, if you are adopted by God then you have the perfect family for eternity.  You get to experience it a little in the church, but remember the church is filled with people figuring out life too.  It will not be perfect now, but that doesn't mean that God doesn't love you or have a purpose for your life.  He is trying to give you an abundant life because life is meant to be lived.  Live your life, but make sure that God is the center of it.

John 16:31-33, Romans 8:12-17, 12:14-16, 1 Corinthians 12:22-26, Galatians 4:1-7, & Hebrew 4:14-16