Does Our Adoption in God's Family Motivate Us?

A powerful article:

As Christians, we owe our place in the household of God to the relentless, loving, unyielding pursuit of our Triune God. God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit took a “whatever it takes” approach to redeem us so that we might receive adoption as sons. When God sent forth his Son into the world, he did so knowing his Son would face the agony of Gethsemane and God-forsakenness upon the cross. Wonderfully, by the glory of the Father Jesus passed through death into resurrection. God had secured our place in his family. He essentially moved heaven and earth to get us!

Do you know what orphans need? You knew I was going to ask that question, didn’t you? Orphans need Christians who have been so gripped by the relentless, loving, unyielding pursuit of their God for them that they will “move heaven and earth” to visit them in their affliction. The church of Jesus Christ needs this kind of commitment in order to fulfill the biblical mandate to care for orphans. Obviously, this certainly does not mean that every believer needs to move across the sea for the sake of the fatherless (although I must say that it would be very interesting if this did happen!). What it does mean, though, is that we, together, are committed to caring for the orphan even if it brings us pain—emotional, physical, spiritual, economic, or otherwise.

If we are to become God-like in our care for the fatherless, we must live and move and find our daily joy and comfort in the story of redemption. The reality of what God has done for us in Christ is the key to mobilizing the church to visit orphans in their affliction.