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Are You Adopted?

February 19, 2018

Ephesians 1:6-8

6 So we praise God for the glorious grace he has poured out on us who belong to his dear Son. 7 He is so rich in kindness and grace that he purchased our freedom with the blood of his Son and forgave our sins. 8 He has showered his kindness on us, along with all wisdom and understanding.

CONSIDER THIS

Every word, phrase, sentence, paragraph and page of Scripture abounds with revelation, which is to say it contains more substance and significance than we could ever extract from it. And yet we just keep moving on.

In some ways, for me, the Daily Text feels akin to that iconic scene from the old show, I Love Lucy, where Lucy and Ethel are tasked with putting wrappers on chocolate candies as they pass by on a conveyer belt. Like those chocolates, the texts just keep coming and I can’t keep up. (If you have an extra two minutes you can watch it here.)

Take for instance the incomprehensibly comprehensive phrase from v.3, “every spiritual blessing in the heavenly realms.” It could serve as a banner over the entire letter, as no sooner than he says it, Paul starts spinning them off with a velocity only matched by his alacrity (now there’s a good word).

As an example, consider this blessing we didn’t even acknowledge from v.5: “God decided in advance to adopt us . . .”

Wait! Did he just say I was adopted? I guess every adopted kid finds out sooner or later. With the blessing of adoption comes the agony of facing the curse of abandonment. With every layer of discovered blessing comes the awareness of a deeper bereftness. You see, adoption here is not a metaphor for our relationship with God. It’s a literal reality.

The hard cold truth is God did not abandon us. We abandoned him, hiding in a forest of lies, covered in a cloak of impenetrable shame. And it remains our ingrained pattern to the present day. We aren’t bad, just broken. Here’s the deeper truth of adoption: we will discover our blessedness to the degree we face our brokenness. That’s where most all of us get stuck and why adoption is more of a concept we salute than a reality we savor.

Lately I have enjoyed observing from afar a young family on Instagram. They recently adopted a young girl who looks to be about ten years old. It’s stunning to see the way they are lavishing this girl with every possible blessing. She’s learning to dance and sing and really, to be a child. They want to take her everywhere and show her everything. It’s like they want her to know that everything they are and have now belongs to her because she now belongs to them.

That’s what salvation is; not a one-time transaction in a ledger in the sky somewhere but the unending full faith and credit of every spiritual blessing in the heavenly realms crashing through the invisible barriers that separate us from God and each other, invading the old order with a newness that never loses its resplendent sheen.

LENTEN INSIGHT: Because Lent has been so associated with fasting over the centuries, it has taken on a general tone of dourness. As Christians, we must approach the journey to the Cross in the light of the Resurrection. We are not trying to simulate some kind of pre-resurrection reality. It is because of the resurrection that we journey to the Cross. For that reason, the 40 days of Lent do not include the Sundays. Sundays, the Day of Resurrection, are always feast days. This also has the effect of crushing the pride of those who are keeping score with their fasting; enabling fasting to be about hunger for God and not some kind of spiritual contest. ;0)

THE PRAYER

Abba Father, we thank you for your son, Jesus, who took on our brokenness and who would make it a thing of beauty if we would walk in this blessed way of the Cross with him. I want to know this way. We pray in Jesus name, amen.

THE QUESTIONS

  1. Have you ever reflected on this notion of being blessed with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly realms?
  2. How do these concepts like adoption and redemption become more than abstract concepts in our understanding?
  3. What do you make of this thought about the connection between our experience of the blessing of adoption being related to our awareness of the curse of abandonment

P.S. The Daily Text Community, from the Farm Team to the far reaches, fasts together each Wednesday. We’ve put together a weekly guide to help. If you’ve not done it yet, now (the first week of Lent) would be a great time to begin. Sign up here today. You will get the first email tomorrow and hit the ground running on Wednesday.

P.S.S. In case you missed our Daily Text 4th Birthday Party on Saturday, we are keeping the deal on Daily Text books open through the end of the week. Use the code DTBD.

Subscribe to receive the Daily Text email.

Join the Daily Text Facebook group here.

Join the Daily Text Fasting Challenge here. Whenever you sign up, it will begin the following Tuesday.

J.D. Walt, is a Bond Slave of the Lord Jesus Christ. jd.walt@seedbed.com.

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WHAT IS THIS? Wake-Up Call is a daily encouragement to shake off the slumber of our busy lives and turn our eyes toward Jesus. Each morning our community gathers around a Scripture, a reflection, a prayer, and a few short questions, inviting us to reorient our lives around the love of Jesus that transforms our hearts, homes, churches, and cities.

Comments and Discussion

One Response

  1. I appreciate your article, especially the way you highlight the fact that as Christians, we are all adopted, but as an adoptive mother, I lovingly invite you to reconsider your statement about every adopted child eventually finding out. Nowadays, most adopted kids find out organically, that is, it’s simply a part of the story their parents tell them as they grow up, and it’s seen as a positive thing, not a dreaded secret to be kept in the closet. In the past, that wasn’t the case, and many people did indeed feel traumatized when they learned the truth because there was such a stigma attached to adoption. My kids, now 30 and 25, were 13 and 8 when we adopted them and obviously always knew they were adopted. If you ask them, they will tell you that while their story does involve LOSS of the birth family, their adoption narrative is not one of ABANDONMENT, but of loss and that while that loss is part of their story, it is not the controlling narrative of their lives. Thank you again for your thoughts and for your emphasis on adoption into God’s family as a gift.

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