The Greatest Secret: How Being God's Adopted Children Changes EverythingSample

Adoption – Justice at our kitchen table   

Our adoption into God’s family does not just mean that he cares for our spiritual needs. He also cares for our social needs – welcoming us into a church family of brothers, sisters, fathers and mothers. We see in Matthew 6:25-34 that God cares for our physical needs – he tells us that as our heavenly Father we can rely on him to provide the food for our stomachs and clothes for our backs. God is also committed to helping us with our emotional and pastoral needs, sending the Spirit of adoption to comfort us and confirm that we have the right to call him Abba Father. We need not worry about any of this. God's provision is total—you might even say holistic. 

Here in Matthew 7, Jesus says that the way we have experienced God’s father-child provision and advocacy is the model for the way we are to champion justice for others. God the Father delights to welcome us into the same relational intimacy that he enjoys with Jesus and the Holy Spirit. When we draw alongside others in the same way, feeding them, learning their names, seeing their faces, dressing their wounds, holding them in our arms, then we cannot but want to change the world for them and with them. 

How many hours a week was Jesus seeking justice? How many days a month? The question is ludicrous. Jesus commanded us to be continually seeking first the kingdom of God and the righteousness and justice that that entails. Justice is not just to be our hobby, or even our passion. It is to be our ontology – our way of being. Justice should be the dialect of our language, the flavour of our work assignments, the colour of our home lives, the rhythm of our footsteps.

Whatever I do for my children pales into insignificance compared to God’s great and generous love and provision for us. I can bask in that wonderful promise for a long time. But that was never meant to be the end of the story. It’s not an excuse to sit back, it’s a motivation to step forward. 

What practical steps can you make today to speak about and demonstrate our heavenly Father’s love for the world?