Adopted by God

It’s my turn to post at Out of the Ordinary. I’ve written on the believer’s adoption, adding one more to my list of truths every Christian woman should know.

When you believed the gospel, you were adopted by God. He became your father and you became his child. Before you believed, you were estranged from God, but with adoption, you come into a loving father/child relationship with him. J. I. Packer explains that our “adopted status means that in and through Christ God loves [us] as he loves his only begotten Son and will share with [us] all the glory that is Christ’s now.”

Adoption is one of the saving benefits that comes to us through Christ’s work. The believer’s sins have been forgiven and they have been given right standing with God, so they can be adopted by him. Or to think of it another way, believers have been united with Christ, and the relationship they have with God the Father is in many ways similar to his. He is the unique Son of God, but those united to him, as his siblings, are also God’s sons and daughters—sons and daughters by adoption. 

Read the rest.

Here are the previous posts in this series: 

1. God Has Spoken (posted at the True Woman Blog) 
2. God Is Three and God Is One
3. God Is Who He Is
4. God Had a Plan
5. God Created the Universe
6. We Are Made in God’s Image
7. We Are All Sinners
8. God Saves
9. The Son Came
10. Jesus Lived and Died
11. Jesus Is Risen
12. Jesus Is Lord
13. We Must Believe
14. Believers Have New Life

Thankful Thursday

Today I’m thankful for

• a few dreaded tasks finished—and they weren’t so bad after all. 
• warmer winter weather. We had a cold spell that ended today and the forecast for next week okay. Anytime Yukon January weather looks decent, it’s something to be thankful for. 
• for the busyness that keeps the cold, dark days flying by. And while I’m at it, I’m thankful that one week of January 2015 is crossed off the calendar. One week down, three and a bit to go.
• smelly candles and an African violet in bloom, two things to brighten the darkness of the winter days.
• God’s daily faithfulness (Where would I be without it?) and God’s rule in world history (Where would we be without it?)
• adoption into God’s family. 

Also thankful today:

• Kim Shay
• Persis

What are you thankful for? Leave a comment with your thanksgiving, post your thanksgiving on your blog, or tweet it. Give me the link by email or in a comment and I’ll add your thanksgiving to the list in the post.

Theological Term of the Week

christology
The branch of theology that investigates what scripture teaches about the person and work of Jesus Christ, including his deity, humanity, preexistence, incarnation, sinlessness, death, resurrection, ascension, and more.

• A little christology in scripture: 

Have this mind among yourselves, which is yours in Christ Jesus, who, though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied himself, by taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men. And being found in human form, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross. Therefore God has highly exalted him and bestowed on him the name that is above every name, so that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father. (Philippians 2:5-11 ESV)

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