I Will Adopt You into My Family

BY She Reads Truth

The word gospel simply means “good news,” but sometimes it can be difficult to fathom just how good the news really is. The gift of God is not only the forgiveness of sins, nor is the gift just everlasting life on a renewed earth, free from sin, death, and pain. God goes further than that: He brings us into His family, with all the rights and privileges that come with being a child of the King (Galatians 4:7).

God’s Word says, “He has also raised us up with him and seated us with him in the heavens in Christ Jesus” (Ephesians 2:6). Notice that this is our current status. According to this verse, we have already been raised up to take our place beside the Lord. We are God’s children, so we have a seat with the family, right next to Jesus. But that’s not all. We are there for a reason: “so that in the coming ages he might display the immeasurable riches of his grace through his kindness to us in Christ Jesus” (Ephesians 2:7).

How could we even begin to calculate or imagine what an infinite God might mean by “immeasurable riches”? Peter described them as “imperishable, undefiled, and unfading,” and “kept in heaven for you” (1Peter 1:4). We will need to wait for these. But there is a greater gift still, and it is ours right now: God Himself. “And because you are sons, God sent the Spirit of his Son into our hearts, crying, ‘Abba, Father!’” (Galatians 4:6). We get to call the Maker of heaven and earth Abba, the same intimate and familiar term Jesus used of the Father (Mark 14:36). Calling this news “good” doesn’t seem to quite do it justice.