Wholeness Ministries
www.wholeness.org
www.wholeness.org
When It's Okay To Be A Child Part 3 of 3
Adopted by God
We have an inheritance that is promised for those who come to Jesus as little children. This is an inheritance that comes about as a result of our adoption, which is thoroughly a result of His grace. "He predestined us to be adopted as his sons (children) through Jesus Christ, in accordance with his pleasure and will to the praise of his glorious grace, which he has freely given us in the One he loves." (Eph 1:5). Someone wrote that predestination means that "God has determined beforehand that those who believe in Christ will be adopted into His family and conformed to His Son, but it does not relieve man of his responsibility to believe the gospel in order to bring to pass God's predestination for him personally."
When adoption is used of believers in the present age, it reveals that at the same moment we become sons or daughters of God, we are also adopted by God. Some may know firsthand what adoption means. Ideally when you were adopted you received the same benefits and standing as would a natural child of the family into which you were adopted. Some of you may not know firsthand what adoption means,but you certainly know what privileges you had as a natural born child into your family
We have been adopted by God and are likewise sons and daughters of God. We have received the Spirit of Adoption. "Because those who are led by the Spirit of God are sons of God. For you did not receive a spirit that makes you a slave again to fear, but you received the Spirit of sonship. And by him we cry, "Abba, Father." The spirit himself testifies with our spirit that we are God's children. Now if we are children,then we are heirs-heirs of God and co-heirs with Christ, if indeed we share in his sufferings in order that we may also share in his glory." (Rom. 8:14-17).
This passage testifies that we are God's children and that we have been adopted into the family. Adoption, by its very nature, gives us access to an intimate relationship with God as our Abba, Father. "There is something subjective something which essentially belongs to the realm of feeling and subjectivity, and the emotions. It is something within us at a deeper level than the level of the intellect." "What exactly then is the Apostle telling us? The first thing he tells us is that it is a "Spirit of Adoption", by which he means that it is a consciousness of the fact that we have been adopted into the family of God. A consciousness of it, and not merely a belief of the fact. What the Apostle is emphasizing here is that not only must we believe this doctrine, and accept it with our minds, but we must also be conscious of it, and feel it."
In this same passage, "Abba" was the word used familiarly by children talking to their fathers. It is a child's word, used by children of the Jewish race, a word much like we would use with our own "daddy, or papa." Ed Piorek writes concerning the emotional experience of the Father's love, "I believe that this work in the Spirit that puts us intimately in the presence of the Father, where we receive evidence of our sonship and thereby relate to the Father as intimately as Jesus did, is very similar if not the same as the working of the Spirit in the life of Jesus at His baptism. In other words the spirit of sonship brings the dynamic experience of the Father's love."
The reality of this love came to me during a healing conference I attended at the Anaheim Vineyard in California in the late 1980's. John Wimber had invited all the pastors to come forward for prayer. We gathered up near the stage and as John prayed I began with deep sobs to sink to my knees. I don't know how long I remained there on my knees, but when I stood up I was flooded with the most incredible warmth of God's love I had ever felt. As I stood there with my eyes closed and my hands raised I asked, "God, how much do you love me?" Immediately I saw in my mind a picture of two hands with the palms open, with deep wounds in them, coming down through the clouds. The moment I realized whose hands they were I felt something touch my open palms and I heard God say, "This much." I was overwhelmed with the depth of God's love for me and wept like a little child, sobbing with joy, unashamed and completely oblivious to those around me.
We are told in Scripture that God wants to lavish His love on us. "How great is the love the Father has lavished on us." (I John3:1) To lavish means to bestow in profusion; unrestrained, to give generously. Jesus says in Matthew, "All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me" (Matthew 28:18). In Luke Jesus called the twelve disciples together and gave them power and authority to drive out all demons and to cure diseases, and he sent them out to preach the kingdom of God and to heal the sick. In Luke, after he sends out the 72 they come back rejoicing and he says, "I have given you power and authority to trample on snakes and scorpions and to overcome all the power of the enemy, nothing will injure you." (v. 10:19 ) Do we have this same authority and power? Yes! WHY? Because we are co-heirs with Christ!
First, He says if you are even going to come into the kingdom of heaven you must turn from sin and consider your status or self-importance as insignificant. He wants you to come with childlike faith and trust. Entrance is by His grace not by our works. Second, he says the kingdom of God belongs to those who are trusting, dependent, expectant. Last, not only will He lavish his love upon you but he has given you power and authority to drive out demons, to cure diseases, and to heal the sick!
I grew up believing that the object of salvation was to keep me from hell but I've grown to understand that: "The ultimate object of salvation is not merely to keep us from hell, not merely to deliver us from certain sins; it is that we may enjoy 'adoption', and that we may become the children of God and joint-heirs with Christ. This is what is offered us in the Gospel of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. God forbid that any of us should stop at any point short of it!"
"LET'S REGAIN AND RETAIN THOSE CHILDLIKE QUALITIES WHICH WOULD TRULY ALLOW GOD TO JOYFULLY CLAIM US AS HIS CHILDREN!"
Wholeness ministries offers a weekly School of Healing Prayer, individual prayer by appointment, numerous resources on both audio and videotape as well as our book "Learning To do What Jesus Did."
For more information please contact:
Rev. Mike Evans
4301 Stine Rd. Suite H
Bakersfield CA
USA 93313
661-833-2920
Fax 661-833-2934
mevans@wholeness.org
www.wholeness.org
