Adoption Lessons: Reconciled and Redeemed

KFHP = Kids from Hard Places.

Four Realities of adopting KFHP*

1. Your kids will not be grateful that you "saved" them.

2. They will not love you.

3. They will have no inclination to obey you.

4. They will exclusively want what they want.

JUST LIKE ME...

WHEN WHILE I WAS YET A SINNER, CHRIST DIED FOR ME.

Some of use are adopted by Christ as "infants."

We know his love as babies.

Because we grow up secure in His love toward us,

we have an easier time

believing,

loving,

trusting,

and submitting

to His authority in our lives

And many more of us are adopted from hard places..

where our sin has corrupted

and made our hearts hard,

fearful,

untrusting,

rebellious.

Adoption is a redemptive work.

It is a spiritual work.

If the family (Father over mother over children) is a reflection of the very triune nature of the Godhead, then orphaned children are the complete corruption of that order:

Fathers and mothers abandoning and abusing

rather than protecting and sanctifying their children.

Children rebelling and fearing

rather than submitting and trusting.

The work of reconciliation of the orphaned child is surely a spiritual work.

Just as marriage is a picture of Christ and the church,

Adoption is a reflection of the way God saves us,

while we were yet sinners,

laying his life down for us...

before we loved him,

before we were thankful,

before we EVER wanted His will over our own.

Thank God that He didn't make his grace for me

contingent upon me meeting His needs!

And yet,

God allows himself to "need" and desire our love...

just as parents need and desire their children's love.

It is painful when children withhold that love and rebel.

Wow.

What a picture of the God-to-man relationship!

*obviously, as redemption and reconciliation come, these realities change!