I worked hard this morning in my message to persuade that adoption is the highest privilege afforded by the gospel.

It might be easier for me than some to embrace that, since I am an adopted son in the earthly realm.

I mentioned today that Nancy and I spent yesterday with my extended family to celebrate my mother’s 80th birthday. That’s her along side my stepdad.

I never stop marveling at the alien love that causes a man to make someone else’s child his son and heir. See what kind of love is this!

If you still need convincing on this idea of the uniqueness of adoption as a gospel blessing, Wayne Grudem offers his take in his systematic theology:

God could have given us justification without the privileges of adoption into his family, for he could have forgiven our sins and given us right legal standing before him without making us his children. It is important to realize this because it helps us to recognize how great are our privileges in adoption. Regeneration has to do with our spiritual life within. Justification has to do with our standing before God’s law. But adoption has to do with our relationship with God as our Father, and in adoption we are given many of the greatest blessings that we will know for all eternity. When we begin to realize the excellence of these blessings, and when we appreciate that God has no obligation to give us any of them, then we will be able to exclaim with the apostle John, “See what love the Father has given us, that we should be called children of God; and so we are” (1 John 3:1).

It’s true. It’s really true. We are beloved children of our heavenly Father. See it. Savor it. Secure it by faith.