Monday, February 18, 2019
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A local businessman was in to share with our Ministry Team, and he made a fascinating observation about his family. He's got three children; two are all grown up and in their late 20s. His youngest is just a nine year old girl. He assured us that she wasn't a "mistake." In fact, she was their choice. And he pointed out something the authorities made very clear at the time the adoption went through. There would come a time when he had a major falling out with one of his natural-born children-a time when he would conceivably, as a father, disown that child; even put him out of the will. But not with this girl he was adopting. He was legally committed to never disown her, to never put her out of his will, and to always take care of her. They said, in essence, "When you adopt a child, she's your child forever."
I'm Ron Hutchcraft and I want to have "A Word With You" today about "Ultimate Security."
For my businessman friend, that experience with adoption opened up a whole new world in terms of his personal relationship with God. It could be the same for you. Because adoption plays a central part in whether or not you actually belong to God, whether or not you go to heaven when you die.
Listen to our word for today from the Word of God. The Lord's pulling back the curtain of eternity to let us see this panoramic view of how God has planned and provided for you joining His family. Ephesians 1:4 says this: "In love He predestined us to be adopted as His sons (or His children) through Jesus Christ...In Him we have redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of sins." God has had His eye on you before there was a world! And He made a plan to adopt you into His family so you could be with Him forever.
There are few more comforting and more peace-giving words in the English language than this one-secure. But security may be something you've never had much of in your life. You've experienced a lot of conditional love, performance love, but not much love that would be there no matter how unlovable you are. Maybe there have been people or positions or things that were your security blanket but they're gone, and with them, so is your sense of being safe. If you've been disappointed in relationships, if you've been hurt a lot, or if you're just tired of losing what you were hanging onto, then you're ready to be adopted by God.
Remember what the authorities told my friend, "When you adopt a child, she's yours forever." That's the kind of unshakable, unlosable security that God is offering you. Adoptions can be expensive. For God to adopt you, the price was unthinkable-the sacrifice of His one and only Son on the cross. Because there's no way you could be a daughter or son in God's family with all the wrong things you've done. After all, God the Father is perfect. But, as the verse says, God offers forgiveness of sins through the blood Jesus shed on the cross. Your sin was paid for so your sin could be forgiven. And God stands ready to make you His child today.
But only if you want Him to. Only if you'll pin all your hopes on Jesus and what He did on the cross for you. At the moment you give yourself to Jesus, you are adopted into God's family, and you finally belong. You're finally secure. You're finally safe.
You want that? Would you tell Him that right now? And, please, go to our website. It's a support; it's backup for you right now to give you biblical information that will help you know that you've begun this relationship and you've got it forever. That website is ANewStory.com where a new story for your life could begin.
Your lifelong search for a love that you could never lose can end today. God has paid the price to adopt you. His arms are open wide. It's time for you to run into those big old Father's waiting arms, because once you do, He'll never let you go.