Devotional Text: John 1:11-13,Matthew 12:49-50,Romans 8:15
A good friend of mine is adopted. He says he doesn't remember a time when he didn’t know that he was adopted. His adoptive parents assured him from the beginning that he was extra special because they chose him. Except for a fistfight he got into with some classmates who teased him about it in fourth grade, being adopted never seemed like a big deal to him.
But in the back of his mind he often wondered: Where am I from? Who are my biological parents? Whom am I related to?
Now that he's older, these questions don’t matter as much as they used to in part because he's a parent himself. I know from experience that neither childbirth nor the events leading up to it—as important as they are—can begin to compare to everything that comes afterwards. Parenting, after all, is the most rewarding, heartbreaking, amazing, and frustrating endeavor in which human beings can be involved!
My point is this: Even if he doesn't know his genealogy, he knows who his mom and dad are. They couldn’t have loved him more if they had given birth to him. He is as much a part of their family as someone who was born into it.
Now consider Paul’s words in Romans 8:15: Through faith in Christ, we have been adopted into God’s family. God is Abba, our Father. We have the same status before God as Jesus himself. Like him, we are God’s children.
As a result, while he may not know where he's from, he knows where he is going. While he may not know his earthly father, he knows his heavenly Father. That matters more than anything.
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