18 | February | 2016 | Susie Stewart

It would be enough if God just cleansed your name, but He does more. He give you His name. It would be enough if God just set you free, but He does more. He takes you home…

Adoptive parents understand this more than anyone. I certainly don’t mean to offend ny biological parents – I’m one myself. We biological parents know well the earnest longing to have a child. But in many cases our cribs were filled easily. We decided to have a child and a child came. In fact, sometimes the child came with no decision. I’ve heard of unplanned pregnancies, but I’ve never heard of an unplanned adoption.

That’s why adoptive parents understand God’s passion to adopt us. They know what it means to feel an empty space inside. They know what it means to hunt, to set out on a mission, and take responsibility for a child with a spotted past and a dubious future. If anybody understands God’s ardor for His children, it’s someone who has rescued an orphan from despair, for that is what God has done for us.

God has adopted you. God sought you, found you, signed the papers and took you home.

– Max Lucado

Long ago, before God made the world, God chose us to be His very own, through what Christ would do for us; He decided then to make us holy in His eyes, without a single fault we who stand before Him covered in His love. His unchanging plan has always been to adopt us into His own family by sending Jesus Christ to die for us. And He did this because He wanted to.

– Ephesians 1:3-5 (TLB)

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!” The Spirit Himself bears witness with our spirit that we are children of God.

– Romans 8:15-16 (NASB)

But when the fullness of time came, God sent forth His Son, born of a woman, born under the Law, in order that He might redeem those who were under the Law, that we might receive the adoption as sons.

– Galatians 4:4-5 (NASB)