May I?

May I rant for a minute? I promise to be concise and logical.

Yeah. Right.

Today, some friends of mine and I were talking at school. Our conversation got cut short or else I would have told them some of the things that I'm about to tell you. We started by talking about motherhood and how much we couldn't wait to have babies and be moms. That morphed to talking about giving birth and about how some people were afraid of the pain and discomfort involved with pregnancy and I, of course, said "Well they can adopt!" Surprisingly, even amongst my dear, dear friends, this proposal met with some hesitation.

"But, most people really want to have their own kids. You know, they really want their own. They don't want to just adopt them and not get to have their own."


Their own?

Friends, may we examine this phrase? (I know that I'm preaching to the choir here, and I of course wasn't surprised to meet this kind of doubt about adoption, but I was surprised to hear it from my very close friends, who, you know, come to my house, and, you know, hang about with Mez and TeeGee, and, you know, know what I'm passionate about.)

My own.

"Is Ephraim My dear son?

Is he My darling child?

For as often as I speak against him,

I do remember him still.

Therefore My heart yearns for him;

I will surely have mercy on him,

declares the Lord."

~Jeremiah 31:20~

In the old testament, Ephraim was often a foreshadowing of the church. A symbol of God's people of the New Covenant. These questions? They're rhetorical questions. "Is Ephraim My dear son? Is he My darling child?" Rhetorical questions drive the hearer to want to scream "Yes! Yes, of course!"

Do you hear the tender, fatherly affection?

Secondly:

"...and Mattan the father of Jacob, and Jacob the father of Joseph the husband of Mary, of whom Jesus was born, who is called Christ. So all the generations from Abraham to David were fourteen generations and from David to the deportation to Babylon fourteen generations, and from the deportation to Babylon to the Christ fourteen generations."

~Matthew 1:15b-16~

This is the genealogy of Jesus. The Lion of Judah. The root of Jesse. The one to sit on David's Throne. This is the child of Rahab and Salmon, and of Ruth and Boaz. This is the promised Messiah born in Bethlehem. This is the Christ.

"When Joseph woke from sleep, he did as the angel of the Lord commanded him: he took his wife, but knew her not until she had given birth to a son. And he called his name Jesus."

~Matthew 1:24~

Jesus was not the biological son of Joseph. He was conceived of the Holy Spirit, born of the Virgin Mary. This we know.

SO. If Jesus was not really Joseph's own son, if his earthly adoption was not, in fact, a real or effectual thing, then we've been wrong all these years. It wasn't Jesus, it was his younger brother James who is the Messiah! James carried the blood line of Jesse and David.

But adoption is of the Lord. Established and exemplified by Him. Evident in the life and heritage of His own son. Jesus, was adopted.

To doubt that adoption makes a child YOUR OWN, is to doubt the promise of the Lord and your sonship (daughtership) to Him. We are adopted children of God, made heirs with Christ, who is the eldest of many brethren. Shall we doubt that we are God's dear sons and daughters, shall we doubt that we are His own darling children?

I have decided what my thesis for next year will be. I had already thought it out and had come up with eveything but the 3rd proof. Today, I've chosen a third proof. My thesis statement:

Adoption is the surest way to counteract abortion in a culture because it upholds the sanctity of life, speaks to the needs of the mother and the child, and is an effective way of grafting a new member of the family into the covenant family.

"But the Lord has taken you and brought you out of the iron furnace, out of Egypt, to be a people of His own inheritance, as you are to this day."

~Deuteronomy 4:20~