You Belong by Pete Briscoeنموونە

Your Place In the Family of God

A father is someone who carries pictures in his wallet where his money used to be. — Unknown

There is just something about this adoption thing. Something about the way a child is chosen and accepted by choice, not by reluctant obligation, but out of pure joy—often at great expense. If God carried a wallet, your picture would be in it, and you would know that it cost Him everything to put it there—an eternal love that paid the ultimate price so we might become one with Him and His family. That’s a special kind of love—a love that goes in search of someone to receive, and then chooses to do so.

For he chose us in him before the creation of the world to be holy and blameless in his sight. In love he predestined us for adoption to sonship through Jesus Christ, in accordance with his pleasure and will. (Ephesians 1:4-5)

Yes, our adoption is by the Father’s choice and desire. Pulling us into a family where Christ calls us brothers and sisters. But like all families, dynamics change. For a time, Jesus walked with our siblings in physical person, but He knew that things were going to change, and so He prayed a most remarkable prayer to our Father. May our prayers echo His prayer:

“My prayer is not for them alone. I also pray for those who will believe in me through their message, that all of them may be one, Father, just as you are in me and I am in you. May they also be in us so that the world may believe that you have sent me. I have given them the glory that you gave me, that they may be one as we are one—I in them and you in me—so that they may be brought to complete unity. Then the world will know that you sent me and have loved them even as you have loved me.” (John 17:20-23)