Going Farther

Now let me take you farther. Remember the story of the prodigal son of Luke 15? One day that boy decides to jump the rail and hit the trail back to his father's house. He left with a purse full of money and a life full of pride. Now the purse and the pride are depleted, he returns with the smell of the pig pen and a rehearsed apology that he will present to his father:

Luke 15:18
I will arise and go to my father, and will say unto him, Father, I have sinned against heaven, and before thee,

Luke 15:19
And am no more worthy to be called thy son: make me as one of thy hired servants.

Here we see the son willing to stop being a son. Or was he? He called him father, he didn't say "I will go to Bob's house and ask for forgiveness." Now all the father has to do is be willing to stop being his father and make him as one of his hired servants. Good plan he thought. Well how did that work out for the boy? Not as he had planned.

Luke 15:20
And he arose, and came to his father. But when he was yet a great way off, his father saw him, and had compassion, and ran, and fell on his neck, and kissed him.

Luk 15:24
For this my son was dead, and is alive again; he was lost, and is found. And they began to be merry.
He may have been out of the father's house but he was never out of the father's heart; he had left the table but he never left the family. The day we came to Christ, God not only forgives us, He also adopts us.

Romans 8:15
For ye have not received the spirit of bondage again to fear; but ye have received the Spirit of adoption, whereby we cry, Abba, Father.

Romans 8:16
The Spirit itself beareth witness with our spirit, that we are the children of God:

Galatians 4:4
But when the fulness of the time was come, God sent forth his Son, made of a woman, made under the law,

Galatians 4:5
To redeem them that were under the law, that we might receive the adoption of sons. I've heard of unplanned and unwanted pregnancies, but I have never heard of an unplanned or unwanted adoption. Adoptive parents know what it means to hunt, to set out on a mission and take responsibility for a child with a spotted past and a questionable future. God has rescued you and I from despair. God has adopted us, sought us, found us. God did not adopt us because we were good looking or because of our wealth or wisdom. God adopted us knowing full well the trouble you and I would be and the price He would pay. Adoption is not something we earn it's a gift we receive. Adoption agencies don't train children to recruit parents; they seek parents to adopt children. If we can't earn our adoption by our star performance, than we can't lose it with our poor performance? Read those verses above again; did you see that word "received "Adoption is something we simply receive. Our Father will never turn us away, His doors are never closed. The question of that young man when he said that God was angry with him and is causing all this trouble to come his way; well the answer is no! For God's love for us is far greater than we can understand

Romans 8:35
Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword?

Romans 8:38 For I am persuaded, that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present, nor things to come,

Romans 8:39
Nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature, shall be able to separate us from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord. There will be discipline in the family but our heavenly Father will not discipline us for the rest of our lives. He disciplines us because He loves us; I disciplined my children when they needed it. To teach them and train them to help them to know right from wrong that one day they would be able to administer the same to their children. I did not continue to discipline them for the same mistake for the rest of their life and neither does our Heavenly Father. What will separate me from His love? Nothing! I am in the family and He is my heavenly Father and that is what I call Him. When I pray I say "Our Father" for that is what He is. When I was a boy I didn't call everyone father or dad for every man on the street wasn't my father there was only one. So it is now with my heavenly Father who has adopted me into the family.