…so that he could adopt us as his very own children. (Galatians 4:5)
I had a friend in college who had been adopted from an orphanage as a baby. He said that his parents-to-be went into the orphanage, “and could have chosen any child in there. They looked all around and they chose me!” I heard someone else say once that the definition of adoption is voluntary love. This testimony of my friend certainly resonates with that description.
We can rejoice that we were all adopted by Jesus! We weren’t part of his blood-line family. We had no entitled privilege as a blood relative. Anything we gain is from his voluntary love, and voluntary decision to see that we were adopted into his eternal family. To receive that adoption, did we somehow have to catch his eye, to show out, to make him want to adopt us, like one of many children in an orphanage? The most interesting part of all this is that our adoption was not the result of any effort on our part. There was no waiting to find out if we were acceptable to Him, or if we could somehow, in some way, join His family and “be a good fit”. He made sure that we could be called His!
None of this was by means of our position, cleverness, pedigree, DNA, earthly family line, wealth, experience, talents, resume, academic degrees, or any other thing you can name about which we hold in high esteem. He chose to adopt us as his own children because He simply wanted to.
During this Advent season, as we consider what gifts we might receive, or the wish list we share with friends or family who are asking for ideas, it seems the best place to start with our naming of gifts is with the ultimate gift. We have received the gift of being His children. Odd, isn’t it: the One whose birthday we celebrate is the One who does the ultimate gift-giving!
You can’t find that most special gift in a catalog, online, or in the highest-priced store. You can’t earn it, but you can spurn it. It’s readily and freely available “to all who believed him and accepted him,” because to them “he gave the right to become children of God” (John 1:12).
“Father God, thank you for the voluntary love demonstrated by our Lord Jesus Christ, who adopted us into His family! What a gift—one that is truly, as Saint Paul said, “too great for words!”
Freddy Boswell 