JI Packer has a good book titled "Knowing God." I highly recommend it. Some thoughts I had from a chapter titled Sons of God.
God the Father. He is Father to those who are his chosen ones. (Galatians 3:26- "You are all sons of God through faith in Christ Jesus.") He ADOPTED us as his children, his grace poured out unto us. To understand who we as Christians, we need to know God as our Father, and realize how we are his children. As his children, we should have complete and total faith that we can rely completely on him, come before him (humbly) but at the same time confidently because we know as his children we can always trust him. He loves us, he is ALWAYS with us, and he is our king (authority).
To better understand adoption: (Westminster Confession) "All those that are justified, God grants, in and for his only Son Jesus to make partaker of the grace of adoption: by which they are taken into the number, and enjoy the liberties and privileges of the children of God; have His name put upon them, receive the Spirit of adoption; have access to the throne of grace with boldness; are enabled to cry abba Father; pitied, protected, provided for, and chastened by Him, as by a father; yet never cast off, but sealed to the day of redemption, and inherit the promises, as heirs of everlasting salvation."
And here is something crazy,being adopted by Christ is an even better thing than being justified. I mean really, how incredible is it that God has chosen his children (what a endowment!) and has forgiven us is (amazing in itself), but he has furthermore, given us a RELATIONSHIP with him, an intimate, unbelievable, revealing himself to us, relationship. Praise be to him!
4 comments:
Hi Anne,
I think God must be speaking a lot to His church about adoption, because I've seen this subject in several blogs and He is talking to my wife about the same things (and she doesn't read many blogs). And of course, when He is speaking, we should expect this sort of concensus.
In thinking about this, I guess He feels we do not fully appreciate all that He has done for us in adopting us, but He responds very kindly by encouraging us to expore this further. So that's what I intend to do.
Thanks for the post!
Ha ha... I noticed the same thing Loren. Isn't it awesome how God is always showing us the same thing as Christians? I love it when that happens! It is so neat that we as Christians all discover the same truths!
Thank you so much for your comment on my blog, Anne. But for the grace of God, I would be wasting my life trying to 'be cool'. I look forward to reading your blog in the future!
~Nella
Hi Anne,
Thanks for the post. I never thought about adoption quite a bit. Something we talk about in our family. I never have thought of adoption as better than justification though so I will ponder this more. I more think that it's like there are so many aspects of God and his salvation.
See you
Good post, I found it really intersting, and not something I have thought to much about.
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