Young Jonathan, who had been promised a new puppy for his tenth birthday, had a tough time choosing between a dozen likely candidates at the neighborhood pet shop. Finally he decided upon one nondescript shaggy pup who was wagging his tail furiously. Explained Jonathan, “I want the one with the happy ending.”

Everyone loves a story with a happy ending. Anita and I prefer to watch older movies on TCM because they tend to have a happy ending. I have invested my life in other people because I love seeing happy endings in their lives. Trouble tends to rob our happiness, but standing firm in the faith through those trials brings about the happy ending we desire.

Today is a day when you can help bring about a happy ending in someone else’s life. Speak words of hope to them no matter what they throw back. Show God’s compassion like “Chris” did to the bag lady in our skit last weekend. Don’t take an offense but be a friend to the friendless.

Tags: adoption, Caring, encouragement, resurrection

You’ve probably heard by now that our son, Nathan, and his wife, Emily, have adopted a newborn girl in Florida. They drove up from Florida to Nashville, Tennessee yesterday, where they spent the night with our daughter and family. Today they are on the road driving home to Waterloo with the little one. They’ve named her Raegan Elizabeth and Anita and I can’t wait to meet her.

I’ve preached a lot about adoption from the perspective of us being adopted into the faith, but I believe the Lord is about to teach me invaluable first-hand lessons on what adoption really means. Our family is adopting into our family a child from completely outside our family, culture, and socio-economic background. And she will be treated like one of the family from this moment on.

Isn’t that exactly what God did for us? Paul wrote, “For you have not received a spirit of slavery leading to fear again, but you have received a spirit of adoption as sons by which we cry out, “Abba! Father!” (Romans 8:15).

Tags: adoption

A second spiritual blessing Paul describes in Ephesians 1:5: “In love he predestined us to be adopted as his sons through Jesus Christ, in accordance with his pleasure and will”.

To predestine something is to preset the destination before hand. So, Paul declares that God had predestined you to come to Christ even before you responded to the message. That doesn’t mean you didn’t have a choice in the matter, but that God knew in advance the choice you would make.

Note also that the destiny he preset was that you would be adopted into His family. The second spiritual blessing, then, is that we have been adopted into the family of God. To be adopted is to be an outsider who is legally brought into the family to become an insider. With no claim to family rights, family rights are bestowed upon you by the authority of the adoption.

An adoption is a legal process that will hold up in a court. In the case of the spiritual adoption of sinners like us, it means that we are brought into the family of God as full members. He treats us like sons and daughters, not mere servants.

What have you learned about adoption that sheds light on our relationship with God?

Tags: adoption, family, predestination

During the ugly years of Word War II, a Christian woman in Poland was standing by the street when a German soldier was pushing a Jewish mother toward the train station. Everyone knew these helpless victims were being transported to extermination camps. At the heels of the Jewish woman was a small girl in tears.

As they passed the Christian woman, the soldier demanded, “Is this your daughter?” The terrified mother looked straight into the Christian woman’s eyes and said, “No, the child is hers.” From that moment on the Christian woman took that Jewish girl and raised her as her own daughter.

That Christian woman later immigrated to the United States and recounted her story to Penelope Duckworth, a chaplain at Stanford University.

Thank God that we’ve been rescued and adopted into the family of God. “So you are no longer a slave, but a son; and since you are a son, God has made you also an heir” (Galatians 4:7).

Tags: adoption

Remember the story of Snow White? The wicked Queen ordered the hunter to take her deep into the forest and cut her heart out. The hunter had a soft spot in his heart and killed a deer instead, cutting out its heart and taking it back to the queen, saying it was Snow White’s. Snow White was left to die alone in the forest.

But Snow White found her way to a little cabin where she was adopted by the Seven Dwarfs, who cared for her and treated her as one of the family. What a great illustration of God’s Providential care for believers. We were singled out by Satan for death, yet we have been rescued and adopted into the family of God Himself, who takes us under His shepherding wings and treats us as His own. The caregivers He uses to help us, however, are often as strange as those dysfunctional dwarfs.

“He predestined us to be adopted as His sons through Jesus Christ, in accordance with his pleasure and will—” (Ephesians 1:5).

Tags: adoption, fables, providence

A Sunday School Superintendent had two new brothers in Sunday School. When registering them he asked their ages and birthdays. One said, “We’re both seven. My birthday is April 8, 2001, and my brother’s is April 20, 2001.”

“But, that’s impossible!” answered the Superintendent. 

“No, it’s not,” replied the other brother. “One of us is adopted.”

Without thinking, the Superintendant asked, “Which one?”

The boys looked at each other and smiled, and the first brother said, “We asked Dad awhile ago, but he just said he loved us, and he couldn’t remember any more which one was adopted.”

In Romans 8:17 Paul writes, “Now if we are children, then we are heirs—heirs of God and co-heirs with Christ, if indeed we share in his sufferings in order that we may also share in his glory. Adoption means we’re children of God. Let’s live like it!

Tags: adoption, children of God