YES, I AM ADOPTED

I am loved by my Father more than even I can imagine.

His love fills me and sustains me.

Because He loves me He teaches me and disciplines me and I receive it because I know He knows what is best for me.

How special I feel knowing my Father chose me specifically to be His child.

He knew of me and thought of me even before I was. He was patiently waiting and hoping I would choose Him. It is His lovely nature not to force Himself on anybody. He let me know He wanted me, however, the adoption did not take place until I chose Him. Oh, how glad I am that I did.

No words can truly describe the relationship I have with my Father. I am not afraid to say that my relationship with Him comes first.

I know my Father is perfect and cannot tell a lie and He promised me that if I would seek Him first before anything else that He would add to my life everything that would make my joy complete. To this day He has remained faithful to that promise.

I strive to please my Father. He has done so much for me. I long to hear Him say of me ~ "This is my child, in whom I am well pleased."

You know, I have many brothers and sisters who out of His great love for them my Father adopted also. We are all so different and yet we share in the common bond that unites us into one great family and that is the love that brought us all together. As I get to know my brothers and sisters I find that they have such an overflowing gratitude for what our Father has done for them that their greatest desire is also to be pleasing to Him.

Do you know what is funny? I have never seen my Father face to Face and yet I have no doubt that He is real. I see evidence of His greatness on the faces and in the lives of everyone who loves Him as much as I do. And I do love Him with all my heart, soul, mind and strength. Oh yes, He is real.

Our Father has only one begotten Son ~ the very image of Himself. I guess you just don't fool around with perfection. Our Father sent His Son to be with us so we could get to know our Father as we got to know His Son. There was really one purpose for His coming to us. The Son knew that our adoptions would not be legitimate unless He closed a serious gap that would always keep us from our Father. The gap I speak of is our wrongful and rebellious nature. Our Father is just not like that ~ He is good; He is pure. You could not find any wrong in Him if you spent your whole life searching. We just could not be with Him unless somehow our natures could be changed. Our Father's Son shares the love His Father has for us and so it was His desire to make us adoptable, to do whatever He had to in order to unite us into one Family. Pretty selfless considering He was the only rightful heir to His Father's many riches. He knew the only way to bridge the gap was to die for us. He was perfect just as His Father is and He bore our grievous natures and nailed them to the cross on which He died. Because perfection cannot dwell with imperfection His Father was not with Him in His death but His Father used His power to call His Son from death into life and they are together now and forever.

By our Father's Son's death we are now freed from our old natures and can now dwell with our Father who is perfect because He now sees us as perfect through the sacrifice His Son made. Really ~ because our Father and His Son are One it was our Father who made the sacrifice out of His great love for us.

Our Father did His part. He made our union possible and I did my part by choosing Him as He chose me to become an adopted child of His; to join in His many riches; to become a legitimate heir to His inheritance.

Yes, I am proud to say, I have been adopted into the richest family in Heaven and on Earth. These riches are measured only by the abundant life and joy I now experience day to day and someday into all eternity.

9/12/90
XXXO