You can read part 1 below.
God has chosen us in Christ to once again be holy and blameless – in the likeness of God and nothing to be ashamed of. He has decided and planned and worked out that we will be restored and renewed in Christ. We will become what it really means to be human: the images of God.
That comes about through the other outcome of God’s strategy in Ephesians 1:5 – “He predestined us to adoption as sons…” God has chosen us to be his own children. We’re not just the children of Adam and Eve and bound to carry on their legacy. Through Jesus Christ we become the sons and daughters of the Lord God. We live in a relationship with God as our Father. We are brothers and sisters of the Son of God. The Spirit of God courses through our spirits. We have a new legacy, a new heritage. We belong to God and he keeps us and he shapes us and he leads us.
A little boy lived in an orphanage in Colombia, South America. He didn’t know his parents or siblings. In the orphanage he barely had enough to eat; just a child trying to survive, trying to be okay. Then a couple from the U.S. came and got him and moved him into a new way of living – loved, cared for, taught, fed – they provided him everything he needed to be safe and healthy and to grow into a successful man. I can only imagine how life was made different for him when he was adopted and became the son of that couple.
Here’s a short video of a girl finding out she is being adopted.
God has come to get us through Jesus Christ and so life is different. The resources of life are different. The purposes of life are different. The hopes and dreams of life are different. The challenges of life are different. The responsibilities of life are different. The risks of life are different. The potential of life is different. The meaning of life is different. As God’s children, we have all that we need. We are able to live like we were created to live. We can become what we are intended to be: real humans in the image of God. Through Jesus Christ, God has set out to adopt us as his children and make life abundant – holy and blameless.
God has chosen and predestined “in love” – “according to [his] kind intention” – by “His grace” – “freely bestowed on us”. Love, kindness, grace, giving. It sounds like God has done all this planning and strategizing and decision-making and doing because he wants you.
A woman named Mary Ann Bird shared her story:
I grew up knowing I was different, and I hated it. I was born with a cleft palate. My classmates made it clear how I looked: misshapen lip, crooked nose, lopsided teeth, and garbled speech. When schoolmates asked, “What happened to your lip?” I’d tell them I cut it on a piece of glass. It seemed more acceptable to have suffered an accident than to have been born different. I was convinced that no one outside my family could love me. In the second grade we had a hearing test. We stood against the door and covered one ear, the teacher sitting at her desk would whisper something, and we would have to repeat it back – things like “The sky is blue” or “Do you have new shoes?” God must have put the words in Mrs. Leonard’s mouth. Seven words that changed my life. She whispered, “I wish you were my little girl.”
God wants you to be his. Maybe others reject you, push you away, put you down, overlook you, bully you. Or they may use you, manipulate you, groom you – for their own benefit, for their own thrill. You may be rejecting yourself, giving up on yourself, hating yourself. God wants you.
He has planned and designed and made the way for you to become his own child. Through Jesus Christ. That’s the bridge. You have to cross the bridge for yourself. In my 7th grade PE class, when Calvin motioned me to move away from the others, I had to make the move or I wouldn’t have caught the ball. You have to make the move. The move is NOT becoming religious or keeping a system of laws or doing better. The move is trusting Jesus enough to turn your life over to him. That’s what faith is. You can do that right now – tell God you want to be his and that you’re trusting Jesus Christ to make you God’s child, make you holy and blameless, and to lead you through life.
If you have crossed that bridge, if you have trusted Christ and become God’s child, do you realize what you have? Do you realize what you are? Are you paying attention to God’s plan for you to be holy and blameless, to be restored and renewed? Listen to the Spirit to show you how you can live as a child of God growing to become more like him.
