ADOPTED ~ Precious Victor Akah

Even before He made the world, God loved us and chose us in Christ to be holy and without fault in His eyes. God decided in advance to adopt us into His own family by bringing us to Himself through Jesus Christ. This is what he wanted to do, and it gave him great pleasure. So we praise God for the glorious grace He has poured out on us who belong to His dear Son. He is so rich in kindness and grace that He purchased our freedom with the blood of His Son and forgave our sins. He has showered His kindness on us, along with all wisdom and understanding.

The above is from the book of Ephesians Chapter 1 verse 4 - 8 (New Living Translation)NLT.

My focus in this article is on verse 5 "God decided in advance to adopt us into His own family by bringing us to Himself through Jesus Christ. This is what he wanted to do, and it gave him great pleasure."

Amplified Bible puts it this way, "He predestined and lovingly planned for us to be adopted to Himself as [His own] children through Jesus Christ, in accordance with the kind intention and good pleasure of His will—"

This scripture is saying that, because of the great love God had for us (humans), God decided that through Jesus Christ He would make us His children--this was His pleasure and purpose. In most religions of the world, you hardly ever hear their leaders saying that their god e.g (Allah, Buddha etc) sees them or calls them or refers to them as his children. The relationship they have with their god is that of master and servant relationship, and not that of father and child relationship. But in the Christian faith, it is known almost by everyone and as seen from the scripture we just read that God the Father calls His followers His children, because He adopted them all to be His children through Jesus Christ His Son.

This is a great news because we all know that a son has free access to all his father's properties and everything He owns; unfortunately, this is not the same with an ordinary servant. God could have chosen us to be His servants, but because of the depth of love He has for us and the more privileges and rights He wants to give us, He chose us to be His sons and daughters, because that will give us free access to all that He has and owns. Ephesians 1:11 says, "Furthermore, because we are united with Christ, we have received an inheritance from God, for he chose us in advance, and he makes everything work out according to his plan."

Think of everything that God the Father owns, when you become His child through faith in Jesus Christ, you automatically have a right to all of that: a right to use all that belongs to the Father (e.g, giving order and command to angels of God to do whatever you want in line with the will of God the Father); a right to enjoy all that the Father enjoys (e.g rest, good health, wealth, wisdom, riches, abundance, success, victory, dominion, power,...); a right to use the Name of Jesus to bind the devil, deal with life's challenges, destroy demonic manipulations and stop satanic activities around you.... the list is endless.

You must note, however, that this right is only given to bonafide children of God. You must be a bonafide child of God to have and make use of these rights. And there is only one way to become a bonafide child of God: "For you are all children of God through faith in Christ Jesus." Galatians 3:26

You only become a child of God by believing in Christ Jesus as your Lord and Savior. You can be going to church every Sunday and not be a child of God. You can be praying daily, reading the Bible and not be a child of God. There must be a day when you open your mouth and genuinely confess faith in Jesus Christ, acknowledging Him to be your Lord and Savior, not just in words, but your deeds, action and lifestyle must align with what you have confessed. Read Romans 10:9-10.

The first scripture we read says boldly and clearly that God decided in advance to adopt us into His own family by bringing us to Himself through Jesus Christ.

In other words, it is only through Jesus Christ that God brings us to Himself and adopts us into His own family. God has a family and you come into this family only through faith in Jesus Christ. You cannot be a part of God's family if you refuse Jesus Christ and you cannot be one of His children if you reject Jesus Christ. 

Anyone can call God their Father, but the truth is that, God the Father only recognize those who have believed in Jesus Christ as His bonafide children. Have you truly believed in Jesus Christ? Tell yourself the truth. Remember, you can falsely claim to be a child of God, but you cannot have the right of sonship except you believe in Jesus first. You can parade yourself as a child of God, but you cannot have and exercise the rights the true children of God has access to. You can claim to be a child of God, but you cannot claim the rights given to children of God. Only by becoming a true child of God can you have access to the rights God has given to all His children and successfully make use of them.

Become a child of God today by faith in Jesus Christ and you'll gain immediate access to all the rights and privileges children of God has, which includes the privilege to have rest in turbulent times.

Thanks for reading.

Remain blessed. 

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