And not only they, but ourselves also, which have the firstfruits of the Spirit, even we ourselves groan within ourselves, waiting for the adoption, to wit, the redemption of our body (Romans 8:23)
" + "Some people see orphans as people who are stigmatized. Many orphans grow up thinking that they have been forever scarred and stigmatized by God and man alike. One of the reasons this sentiment exists (whether among orphans or non-orphans) is that they think it is abnormal to be an orphan. To a certain degree, this is accurate. Of course, it is appointed to the parents of a child to raise a child. God gave the children to their parents for the parents to be responsible over them. However, what is not abnormal about being an orphan is the fact that everyone is spiritually an orphan. All of us are or were in a state of abandonment.
" + "How can this be? When we were without Jesus, Satan was our father. To put it plainly, Satan is an abusive father. It was like being an orphan. We were a people without a real father to take care of us. That is why our end would have been death. We were disconnected from God, "alienated" from the Lord (Col. 1:21). We had no real father, and death is the proof of it. In the end, our disconnection with God would be manifested in our not being able to see him face to face, never being able to understand who we are because we never saw our real father. In a true sense, we would be deemed orphans without having someone to care for us.
" + "This is why we thank God for his Son, Jesus. By him, we receive the "adoption" the resurrection from the dead, the redemption of our bodies. Without this redemption, there is not a real recognition, from a scriptural view, of our ancestral origin. Jesus explained that God was God of the "living" and not the "dead" (Mt 22:32). Just like God declared that Jesus was his Son by raising him from the dead (Rom. 1:21), so will God declare that he has adopted us, that we are his children by redeeming us from the grave.
" + "Brothers and Sisters, we should be joyful this week because of the promises of our God. If we keep everything in context, if we remember that our God has promised to never forsake and never leave us (Deut 31:6; Jos 1:5; Heb 13:5), we will keep things in their rightful place. No matter how much shame we may feel about our circumstances, nothing we experience can overwhelm the power of the God who loves us and will save us—even from death itself.
" + "Let me leave you with an illustration. Think back to the worst dream you have ever had. You may have tossed and turned. You may have even grit your teeth. But in the end, regardless of how bad a dream it was, you did not allow it to bother you too much because you realized that it was only a dream. When you wake up, you remember the dream but you put it in right context—it was only a dream, you see the big picture. The same is true for our lives in Christ. When we wake up to see our God, we will remember that the things we suffered were for his glory and for our perfection. The set-backs were overcome through our faith in Jesus Christ. The lives we lived were only shadows of the true life we will live in the resurrection with our God and our Lord Jesus Christ. Keep these thoughts to heart Brothers and Sisters, God Bless.
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