I'm reading this incredible book called "Adopted for Life" by Russell Moore. It was given to me by my awesome brother and sister in law. I started reading it, and wasn't quite sure at first. There is a lot of theology in it. Even though I went to Bible school, I must admit I've never been a huge fan of straight theology, I'm much more experiential and relational, for better or worse. Once I really got into the book, I have found it incredible. Even though I've been too busy to make it past page 35 (so far), there are many highlighted and underlined parts already. It is an incredible balance between personal experience and easy to understand theology. While I obviously don't believe every family is called to adopt, this book does a great job giving life to the way that we have been adopted by Christ in our own right. I've never really thought about things quite this way before. One part so far has especially hit me. Listen to this slightly conterversial picture the book paints on page 29.
"Imagine for a momeny that you're adopting a child. As you meet with the social worker in the last stage of the process, you're told that this twelve-year-old has been in and out of psychotherapy since he was 3. He persists in burning things." (The book goes into more graphic detail that I will spare you from). "[the social worker] continues with a little family history. This boy's father, grandfather, great-grandfather, and great-great-grandfather all had histories of violence, ranging from spousal abuse to serial murder. each of them ended life the same way, death by suicide. Think for a minute. Would you want this child? If you did adopt him, wouldn't you keep your eye on him as he played with your other children? Would you watch him nervously as he looks at the butcher knife on the kitchen table? Would you leave the room as he watched a movie on television with your daughter, with the lights out?"
"Well, he's you. And he's me. That's what the gospel is telling us. Our birth father has fangs. And left to ourselves, we'll show ourselves to be as serpentine as he is."
"That's why our own sin ought to disturb us. The "works of the flesh"-jealousy, envy, wrath, lust, hatred, and on and on-ought to alarm us the way a tightness in the chest would alarm a man whose father and grandfather had dropped dead at the age of forty of heart disease. it ought to scare us like forgetting the next-door neighbor's name would scare a woman whose mother was institutionalized on her thirty-fifth birthday for dementia. It's easy to deceive ourselves though. The chest pains? They're just indigestion. The forgetfulness? It's just because of a hectic schedule. Even this self-deceit show us our similarity to our reptilian birth father. He, after all, "knows that his time is short" but rages away against God and his Christ anyways (Rev. 12:12)."
"But the New testament addresses former Satan-imagers with good news. It's not just that we have a stay of execution, a suspension of doom. It's not simply that those who trust in Christ have found a refuge, a safe place, or a foster home. All those in Christ, Paul argues, have received sonship. We are now "Abrahams offspring" (Gal. 3:29). Within this household-the tribal family of Abraham-all those who are in Christ have found a home through the adopting power of God."
I think there is so much power in these paragraphs. Now, I could not take a child like the one in this passage, and that is not the point. God made us in his image, but, our image was marred during the fall. That part, unfortunately, isn't all that clear in this passage. What I do really love, though, is the picture it portrays in that last paragraph. We're not just dealt with or appeased. We are given full rights, full sonship. How incredible is that!
"The promise has dawned, and our identity is now found in him. All of us-whatever our background-have been liberated from the old order (Gal. 4:1-5) and from "the spirit of slavery to fall back into fear" (Rom. 8:15). We now come before God as sons as bearing the very same Spirit as was poured out on the Lord Jesus at the Jordan river, a Spirit through which we cry, "Abba!"." (pg. 31)
This is just incredible, don't you think?
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