Children Are Expensive: The Power of Adoptive Love

(Excerpted from Dad Most High: Revolutionizing your Relationship with God)

Abba’s love is amazing! Your appreciation of it will only deepen as you learn more and more about it. One astounding revelation scripture provides is that we’re adopted children. Paul writes in Romans 8:15 about the Spirit of adoption within us that empowers us to cry, “Abba!”

The Greek word for “adopt” literally means to put in the place of a son. It’s taking someone who’s not a natural child and treating them as though they are. It’s taking an outsider in and making them the full beneficiary of all the blessings and privileges of a family member.

Adoption is an incredible feat of love. I admire those who do it. I sometimes wonder if I could. To be honest, I’m not entirely sure. That’s why I have all the respect in the world for those who do it right.

I marvel at people who possess the heart to take in someone else’s children and count those children as their very own. People with the love and grace inside them to make no distinction between their biological children and those who have a stranger’s blood in their veins. People who wholeheartedly welcome kids who don’t look like them or talk like them or act like them, and love them unconditionally.

You and I don’t look like our Father. Naturally speaking, there’s not much resemblance at all. He’s holy. We’re not. He’s all light, all the time. We gravitate toward the dark. He’s perfectly good, through and through. Us, not so much.

And yet here we are, sitting comfortably at Abba’s table! Accepted. Embraced. Fully a part of the family.

He lets us take His name. He gives us the privilege of calling Him Abba and calling ourselves His children. He lets us come to Him day and night to ask for whatever we need. He even writes us into His will and gives us an inheritance. That’s the highest form of love—to take ungodly and ungrateful creatures like us, and to treat us like beloved, precious children, His very own offspring.

That’s awesome! But it gets even better.

There’s an important contrast in scripture that’s worth taking note of. It’s the difference between us and our “big Brother.” See, we’re all the Father’s adopted sons and daughters, but Jesus is the Father’s only begotten Son.

Think of it this way: we’re all His children, but Jesus is God’s only “biological child.” He’s the only One who’s holy like the Father. He’s the only One who’s totally righteous and thoroughly good like the Father. He’s the only One who bears a perfect family resemblance, the spitting image of God. The rest of us are adopted kids.

Now, have you ever thought about what your Father did to finalize your adoption? If not, get ready to have your mind blown. Imagine you’re in the process of adopting a child. You’re excited to do this and you’re relieved to be taking the final steps of this long journey. You’ve done all the paperwork and passed all the checks. You’ve completed every requirement.

Then one day you get the call you’ve been waiting for. The person on the other end says, “Congratulations! Everything looks good. All the paperwork is in, and we’re ready to go forward. There’s just one last thing left to do in order to finalize the adoption—we need you to bring us your son. Once you hand him over, you can take your new baby home!”

If you’re anything like me, your response would probably go something along the lines of, “Wait…what?!? You mean to tell me that in order to adopt and bless this other child, I’ve got to give up my own child? Yeah, that’s not going to happen. I’m sorry, but it’s just not.”

No matter how excited you were to bring a new son or daughter into your family, everything would come to a screeching halt if that were the condition to complete it. However happy you had been to add to your brood, however badly you wanted to love this new baby, it wouldn’t go any further if the price were your biological child. No way, no how. You just wouldn’t do it. You couldn’t.

But that’s exactly what God the Father did!

He sacrificed His one and only biological Son to become Father to a bunch of kids who look nothing like Him. That right there is some nonsensical love! That’s some totally irrational, completely illogical love! It’s ridiculous and unreasonable. It doesn’t make any sense, but that’s exactly what your Father did to make you His child. That’s how badly He had to have you and me.

Listen and listen good—don’t ever doubt your worth! Don’t you dare entertain the enemy’s lies about you, not even for one second. Whatever falsehoods that deceiver whispers in your ear, you know better now. The price your Father paid for you proves your value to Him.

No matter what anyone else thinks of you.

No matter what anyone else says about you.

No matter how anyone else treats you.

You were worth everything to Him, and there was nothing He wouldn’t do to have you for Himself. If you’re a parent, you know that feeling. You know that you would go to any lengths—even lay down your own life—to give your children a chance to live.

If you struggle with your sense of self-worth, you need to make John 3:16 the center of your renewed identity. I know, I know—we’ve heard that verse so many times that it’s become something of a church cliché. The magnitude of its meaning has gotten lost with the repetition. But close your eyes and say it slowly and let it sink in. Let it inspire you and thrill you and liberate you all over again.

You were worth the life-blood of God’s only begotten Son!

You were worth all of that purity and perfection. He laid all of that goodness, beauty, and virtue on the altar just to claim you. You were worth every bit of the undeserved agony, every last iota of the pain He endured to get you back. You were worth it all.

So start living like it.

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