The Answer

For you did not receive a spirit of slavery again to fear, but you received a spirit of adoption, by which we cry “Abba, Father.”   Romans 8:15

Adoption –  Question:  “What must I do that I may be saved?”  Answer:  Be adopted by God. 

That is the only answer to my plea for rescue.  It is completely inadequate to give me a list of the things that I have to do in order to rescue myself.  I cannot do them.  It is foolish and utterly depressing to start down the path of earning God’s favor.  I am hopelessly sick and completely lost.  Don’t tell me that I have to buck up and try harder.  I am exhausted.  I have no solution, and neither does any man I know.  If there were a human answer, someone would have discovered it.  But there is no human answer to the cry of my soul.  There is only divine rescue – and that comes only by gift, grace and mercy.

Orphans do not get to select their adopted parents.  They wait, in trembling fear and anguish, hoping that someone will choose them.  As time goes on, they realize that their chances diminish.  The younger ones are more appealing, less problems.  One day the truth dawns:  “No one wants me.”

Have you confronted the orphan mentality?  Do you understand that no one wants you – the broken, tattered, battered, failing you – the one you keep under the covers?  If you really opened all the windows into your soul, who would volunteer to bring you into their family?  That’s why the answer to the rescue question must be God’s adoption.  I am old, worn and weary.  But God still wants me to be His own!  Rejoice.  Sing praises.  Jump up and down for joy.  I am not too old, too battered, too messed up for God.  I can hardly believe it, but it’s true.  God wants me.

Did you notice that it is God who makes all the right moves?  All I can do it wait.  He makes the choice.  He initiates the paperwork.  He hires the attorney.  He pays the price.  And then, I am His.  The Greek is huiothesia – literally, to place a son.  It is a technical term from Roman law, used only five times in the New Testament.  It means that the adopted one has the full legal rights and respect as if he were born into the household.  This is never a second-class son, never a step-child.  Furthermore, it implies that the adopted one incorporates all of the character and will of the father who made the adoption.  In a phrase, adoption means “to be like Jesus.”

That’s the answer, isn’t it!