Adoption

Adoption

Over the last several months adoption has consumed every part of my family’s life. So I guess it is not surprising that it has made its way into my thoughts about being a Christian and the comparisons to my relationship with God.

The word adoption is an action noun, meaning adoption acts like a verb with someone performing the act of adoption.

Understanding this it prompted the question for me why does someone need to be adopted? Well, orphans need to be adopted. We all need the security, nurturing and love that a family brings and orphans definitely need that.

This brought along the next question why do we need God to adopt us? The answer can simply be found in scripture.

John 14:18
I will not leave you as orphans; I will come to you.

Ephesians 2:1-2; 4-5
As for you, you were dead in your transgressions and sins, in which you used to live when you followed the ways of this world and of the ruler of the kingdom of the air, the spirit who is now at work in those who are disobedient....But because of his great love for us, God, who is rich in mercy, made us alive with Christ even when we were dead in transgressions—it is by grace you have been saved.

Galatians 4:5
to redeem those under law, that we might receive the full rights of sons

If orphans need to be adopted and Christ refers to us as orphans then we need to be adopted by God. The verses in Galatians and Ephesians tell us how much God loves us and how He wants to make us His children.

Jesus is God’s Son and He is never referred to as adopted. Adoption is an amazing thing it brings in a child who is unrelated by birth and makes them part of the family. For my family this looks like Matthew our son by birth and Nathan our son by adoption becoming brothers. For us as Christians salvation puts on a standing with Christ being our brother.

With adoption comes privileges and rights. When a child is adopted they gain a new family and a new life. When we become believers in Christ and receive salvation we receive the privileges of being adopted into the family of God.

We receive a new standing with God, we can call now call out to Him as our Father (Daddy) because we have a parent child relationship with Him.

Galatians 4:6
And because we are his children, God has sent the Spirit of his Son into our hearts, prompting us to call out, “Abba, Father.”

Not only do we get a new standing but we get a new nature, check out these scriptures.

2 Corinthians 5:17
This means that anyone who belongs to Christ has become a new person. The old life is gone; a new life has begun!

2 Peter 1:3-4
By his divine power, God has given us everything we need for living a godly life. We have received all of this by coming to know him, the one who called us to himself by means of his marvelous glory and excellence.  And because of his glory and excellence, he has given us great and precious promises. These are the promises that enable you to share his divine nature and escape the world’s corruption caused by human desires.

Adoption has privileges but it also has a process. Adoption is a gift that has to be planned for, you have to find a child, go to court and pay a price to finalize the adoption.

With us as Christians it is the same way, uur salvation and adoption are given by the Holy Spirit.

Romans 8:15
For you have not received 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!"

John 1:12
But to all who believed him and accepted him, he gave the right to become children of God.

The word right refers to a legal right, we have the legal right to call God Father when we accept His salvation.

Our salvation and adoption was planned by God through Jesus Christ.

Ephesians 1:5
God decided in advance to adopt us into his own family by bringing us to himself through Jesus Christ. This is what he wanted to do, and it gave him great pleasure.

John 1:12-13
But to all who did receive Him, He gave them the right to be children of God, to those who believe in His name, who were born, not of blood, or of the will of the flesh, or of the will of man, but of God.

All this talk of adoption makes you ask the question what are the results of adoption? Well for Nathan that means he has the same rights and inheritance as Matthew. For us as Christians that means we gain the same fellowship and inheritance with God that Christ has.

Mark 14:36
“Abba, Father,” he cried out, “everything is possible for you. Please take this cup of suffering away from me. Yet I want your will to be done, not mine.”

Romans 8:32
He did not even spare His own Son, but offered Him up for us all; how will He not also with Him grant us everything?

Galatians 4:6-7
And because we are his children, God has sent the Spirit of his Son into our hearts, prompting us to call out, “Abba, Father.”  Now you are no longer a slave but God’s own child. And since you are his child, God has made you his heir.

Romans 8:16-17
For his Spirit joins with our spirit to affirm that we are God’s children. And since we are his children, we are his heirs. In fact, together with Christ we are heirs of God’s glory. But if we are to share his glory, we must also share his suffering.

Our fellowship and inheritance come with responsibilities just like in an earthly family. As adopted children of God it would make sense that since Christ was persecuted we will also be persecuted. Like Christ we can count on the Father being at our side through any situation.

Let me take a brief aside: If all believers are children of God and are equal, then why do we treat each other like step-children. I believe this causes our Father great sadness.



Adoption, how important is it for us to find?

Letters from Kazakhstan 3

Letters from Kazakhstan 3

What do you believe?  An easy enough question...or a trick question.  We all say we believe in something but do we really believe.  Most Christians say they believe in God but what does that look like?  We as Christians are our worst enemy in the cause of Christianity, we say we believe in the Bible yet live our lives apart from its teachings.  A quote I try to constantly remind myself of simply says:  "The greatest single cause of atheism in the world today is Christians, who acknowledge Jesus with their lips and walk out the door, and deny Him by their lifestyle.  

Being a Christian should give us freedom yet so many times we get entangled in do’s and don’ts and then we wonder why we fail at being good.  I think it is time we get back to the basics and forget the rules we have made as people and start with the simple rules found in the Bible.  I believe if we focused on one rule everything else would fall in place.  It is a rule based on love and where I believe all other rules would be made self evident if we just followed passionately after this rule.  Here goes:  LOVE THE LORD WITH ALL YOUR HEART, SOUL, MIND AND STRENGTH.  If we follow passionately after God and love Him with everything we are then the other stuff would fall in place.

With this simple rule our beliefs would line up with our actions and our problem would be solved.  So how do you begin to love God with every fiber of your being?  Simply put, READ YOUR BIBLE and PRAY.

God Bless,

Pastor C

Letters from Kazakhstan #2

Letters from Kazakhstan 2

While here in Kazakhstan I am finding a lot of time to read, some good fiction along with some really thought provoking Christian authors.  I am currently reading “The Importance of Being Foolish; How to Think Like Jesus” by Brennan Manning.  While I don’t always agree with Manning, his books are always thought provoking none the less.

I was reading the first chapter entitled “The Way We Live” and Manning points out that Christ had a relentless passion for the truth.  Then he directs us to think about our society in which the truth is often hard to find.  This made me think about a line from A Few Good Men, “You want the truth, you can’t handle the truth.”  I believe this is where we have found ourselves.  We say we want the truth but when it, the truth, goes against what we want to do, we choose to ignore it and do what we want to anyway.  We rationalize our behavior in disregard to what we know is Biblically correct.  To steal a little more from Manning’s book;

“Consider the man on his third luncheon martini quoting the Apostle Paul about a little wine being good for the stomach; or the “liberated” Christian’s vehement defense of the nudity in The Last Tango in Paris, the violence in Pulp Fiction, because they are “integral to the plot and tastefully done”; or the upstanding church deacon who overlooks cheating and manipulation in his business dealings because “it’s the only way to be competitive”; or whole churches in which the delirium of guiltlessness is reality, the mastery of biblical exegesis is holiness, the size of the congregation is proof of its authenticity, and on and on.  There is no limit to the defenses we contrive against the inbreak of truth into our lives.”

WOW, I find that harsh but the truth none the less.  The truth is a powerful thing, it can change lives and bring us closer to God but for it to have impact we must be willing to accept it and make changes accordingly.  We can’t cheaply purchase the affections of God with token lip service, He paid too high a price for our salvation for us to make the truth relative.  I believe I can sum it all up with this statement, either we love God and embrace His truth or we don’t love Him at all.  If you fall pick yourself up and embrace the truth once more, we all fall and make mistakes but to live in denial or to constantly justify our actions is playing games with the grace bought with a precious price.

Be encouraged and seek out truth, your life will be better and you might just find more peace.

Grace and Peace

Youth Pastor C

Letters from Kazakhstan

Letters from Kazakhstan

Being in country has overwhelmed me...I have seen the splendor of God’s creation from mountain peaks to the flat lands and have been reminded just how great our God is.  Being isolated from the distractions that normally surround life (internet, phone, TV) have afforded me time to think and reflect.  Not to mention this latest journey.

The last several days I have been thinking about love.  What is it, really what is it we all say things like I love you, I love cheeseburgers, I love my dog.  So what is love, think about it, it is a common word we use but do we really understand what it means?

I think I am finally beginning to understand love or at least that I have been mistaken about love for much of my life.  As I have moved along this journey I have ended up with more questions than answers, especially when it comes to the love of God.

Jesus died on the cross for my sins because He loved me.  I find this amazing because in essence He did not really know me because my sin separated me from Him.  This is a giant paradox because Jesus knows us because He created us but yet sin keeps a distance between us and He still died for me/us.  I don’t know about you but I definitely would find it hard to die for someone else especially when I really don’t know them.

The Bible says greater love has no man than he who would lay His life down.  Do you have this kind of love?  I’m not sure I am there yet.  I would lay my life down for Lauren or Matt or even my closest friend but I am not so sure about that person next door.

Love grows as we grow in our faith and my prayer is that God allows me to grow in His love so I can be better at sharing with others.

Verses for thought:

Matthew 22:37; John 17:23; Luke 15; John  3:14-15; John 15:1314; John 21:15-17

What are your thoughts?  Leave me a comment.

Kazakhstan Bound

Well we are off...we hope.  Been a crazy couple of days.  We can't wait for everyone to meet the newest Brogdon.  We are excited about what God is up to, we will be meeting our next child in just a few days.  Pray that we make all of our flights.

Stay tuned for Bible Studies from KAZ...

World Changers Chattanooga

World Changers was a huge success!  I am so proud of all our students and leaders who shared Jesus without fear and worked hard with amazing attitudes!  God is so good, I saw tremendous growth in everyone who participated and watched as God did some amazing things.   I am already looking forward to WC 2011 Birmingham and Poland!

Thanks to our AWESOME Summer and Project Staff, you guys rock'd out Chattanooga!

IWC Romania

WOW!  It has been a crazy month...I feel like I have been on a roller-coaster from mission trip to mission trip to all the craziness of our adoption.  With everything going on finding time to write has been in short supply.  So, here is a single post recap of the last several weeks.

Romania

Romania was an amazing trip and we had the opportunity to see God at work in great and mighty ways.  Our trip got off to a rocky start with our flight from Atlanta to Frankfurt was delayed by about 3 hours this delay caused us to miss our connection to Bucharest.  God showed up and we all were able to get on the same flight just a couple of hours later.  We finally made it to Braila and the Home of Hope orphanage around midnight.

Sunday was a great day, we got to attend church in Braila and I had the opportunity to speak to the congregation and give greetings from the team sharing what our mission for the week would be.  Later that day we met our crew for the week and had a time of crew planning.  We had dinner on the Danube, what would be the only touristy thing we did in Braila.

Monday it was off to the villages for our first day of work.  Three different crews, three different missions...One crew - mission - install flooring in two churches; next crew mission - two children’s camps and a youth camp a day; my crew’s mission -   in home visits with evangelism a children’s and youth camp.

It was incredible to be in the Roma villages and meet the people who live there.  We discovered a welcoming people who were excited and open to hearing what God was doing in our lives and how His power changes lives.  We all instantly fell in love with the warm and affectionate Roma people.  It was awesome to see God move and work in not only the lives of the people we were there to minister to but in each of our lives also.

As we have returned stateside we all have thought about the biggest thing God taught us during the week.  For me God reminded me about love and how I need to love more.  More specifically God reminded me I need to love other Christians more because we are all on the same journey just some are in different places along the road.  I have always found it easy to love the lost but sometimes my patience falls flat when I deal with other Christians.  Thank You God for teaching me how to love others again.

Romania will always hold a special place in my heart.  Thanks Bob and Gail our missionaries for sharing your passion for the Roma.  Thanks Robert, Vasilica and Victor for being my voice and teaching me a little Romanian.