November 8th is Orphan Sunday and I am VERY excited about some things that will be happening at Roosevelt this weekend!
1) We will be having a ministry spotlight talking about foster parenting/adoption with resources available for families who would like to further consider/pray about becoming foster or adoptive parents.
2) Vocab & Nicole will be teaching a RU class called, "A Biblical View on Adoption" after service (lunch will be provided). You don't want to miss it!
3) We will be launching a new Roosevelt book study. We have 6 copies of "Adopted for Life: The Priority of Adoption for Christian Families & Churches" by Russel Moore. I will be commenting/ opening up for discussing a chapter each week on my blog. I hope to have at least 6 people join me on Sunday in reading/discussing this book. (If you don't attend Roosevelt and would like to join the study, order the book now--we will be starting next week.)
**even if you think you will never foster or adopt, this book is well worth reading. 1) to support our families in the church who do and 2) to have a deeper appreciation of God's adoption of you!
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4 comments:
This is great D...I heart.
im new to blogging. I talked to you last sunday about the book and u gave me a copy. I go by sunshine. I have a 1 month old son.
hey i like the book..been reading it
I am really enjoying the book. In our home group we talked about orphans and widows. Orphans are spoken to about all through the Bible. With all these parentless children, it is no side note that God is a “Father to the fatherless” (Psalm 68:5). He has made adoption the apex of the Gospel. Paul brings it home to me in (Ephesians 1:3-6).
Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in the heavenly realms with every spiritual blessing in Christ. For he chose us in him before the creation of the world to be holy and blameless in his sight. In love he predestined us to be adopted as his sons through Jesus Christ, in accordance with his pleasure and will—to the praise of his glorious grace, which he has freely given us in the One he loves
God predestined me and you, all of us to be adopted. So if God shows us a clear example of how right adoption can be why do we hesitate so much to do it ourselves? To think of children differently if they are adopted than if we actually birthed them ourselves? To think orphan children in a third world country are somehow different than orphan children that are in our backyard.
In, reading the book, I started researching other thoughts about adoption. In, John Miley’s. Systematic Theology he refers to John 1:12-13. To be born of God is to be born into his family, and to become his child. Sonship is thus immediately from regeneration.... "But as many as received him, to them he gave the power to become the sons of God, even to them that believe on his name: which were born, not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God.
I am struck by this verse, where he says we are not born of blood… As Miley notes, Adam and all his descendents are indeed God’s children, but only from the perspective of creation… It is only by the grace of adoption that we become children of God "through faith in Christ Jesus" (Galatians 3:26)… Sonship to God is not, therefore, a universal status into which everyone enters by natural birth, but a supernatural gift which one receives through receiving Jesus (J.I. Packer, Knowing God)
More of these thoughts can be found in Ted Johnston’s posting at http://www.wcg.org/lit/gospel/adoption.htm#7
I wish I had learned long ago, to trust God, I mean truly trust God. I never would have “planned on only having enough Children that I could afford…or would have ‘waited to be told by God to adopt…if I could have really understood that it has always been God’s plan for us to take care of the orphan. To stop thinking we know what God has planned for our life 10 years from now, but to stop and do what he planned for us right now…care for the orphan…today.. I think if we all did this, we might not have so many fatherless children today.
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