Articles
The Love of Our Father
Recently I read this CBS news headline: “13-year-old battling kidney disease finds new home with his teacher.” The story told of a young man named Damien who lived in foster care but was being relocated to live in a hospital because no one was able or willing to take him in with his health problems. Here is the saddest part: Damien would probably become ineligible to receive a desperately-needed kidney transplant without a stable home to go home to after surgery.
When Damien told his math teacher, Finn Lanning, he wasn’t coming back to school because he would be living in a hospital, Lanning (a single, childless man) decided to take him in immediately. "It hit me like a ton of bricks. I mean, you just can't sit across from somebody that you care about and hear them say something like that and know that you have room to help," Finn said. Not only did Damien receive a new home, he has since received a new kidney and a new father. Finn plans to adopt as soon as he is able.
What a moving parallel to the love our Father has for us! In all our spiritual failure and the baggage we bring with us, God has willingly adopted us into his own family as sons and daughters. Scripture uses the adoption metaphor to highlight God’s immense love.
“For you have not receive a spirit of slavery leading to fear again, but you have received a spirit of adoption as sons by which we cry out, ‘Abba! Father!” (Rom. 8:15).
“In love, he predestined us to adoption as sons through Jesus Christ to himself, according to the kind intention of his will” (Eph. 1:4-5).
The unique thing about adoption is that it is strictly voluntary. A husband and wife may conceive and bear a child without planning to do so; of course, they will choose to love their new child anyway. But there is something special about adoption, especially when it comes with a high financial and effort cost for someone like Damien with major health needs.
We were sinners deserving condemnation (Rom. 3:23). We were God’s enemies (Rom. 5:5-10). God’s decision to adopt us despite our rebellion and sin demonstrates that his love for us is real, faithful, and will not let us down. God saw we needed a home, that we would be totally and eternally lost, so he graciously opened his home to us. Not only did he willingly forgive us, he joyfully welcomed us in.
All this, at an indescribably high personal cost – the suffering and death of his own Son Jesus Christ.
Damien is a typical foster care kid, being quite jaded by the disappointments in his life, moving in and out of numerous homes and never being able to find where he belongs. To this, Finn said, “Whether he believes it or not doesn’t change the fact that I’m not going anywhere.”
We wonder sometimes if God really does love us, and if so how much. God’s love is even more faithful and unconditional than the most loving earthly father. If we only trust and obey, we will find there is a place for us to belong after all in God’s home. He is your Father. When will you come home?
