Adoption Is War!

God is using UCity to lead a movement of compassion for the orphan. There are ten families in our church who have either adopted or are in the process of adopting... and many more to come hopefully. This Summer UCity will send out two of our own families to lead orphan care initiatives in Mexico and Ethiopia. And God has given me a vision of ensuring that every adoptable child in the NC foster care system is adopted. I know God has called us to this task and I look forward to seeing how He accomplishes His work through us as we dive out deep... way in over our heads. The following is a quote from a book that is rocking my world... Adopted For Life. Are you ready to join the WAR?

"Adoption is one the one hand, gospel. In this adoption tells us who we are as children of the Father. Adoption as gospel tells us about our identity, our inheritance and our mission as sons of God. Adoption is also defined as mission. In this, adoption tells us our purpose in this age as the people of Christ. Missional adoption spurs us to join Christ in advocating for the helpless and the abandoned.

As soon as you peer into the truth of the one aspect, you fall headlong into the truth of the other, and vise versa. That's because it's the way the gospel is. Jesus reconciles us to God and to each other. As we love our God, we love our neighbor; as we love our neighbor, we love our God. We believe Jesus in heavenly things - our adoption in Christ; so we follow him in earthly things - the adoption of children. Without the theological aspect, the emphasis on adoption too easily is seen as mere charity. Without the missional aspect, the doctrine of adoption too easily is seen as mere metaphor.

But adoption is contested, both in its cosmic and missional aspects. The Scriptures tell us that there are unseen beings in the air around us who would rather we not think about what it means to be who we are in Christ. These rulers of this age would rather we ignore both the eternal reality and the earthly icon of it. They would rather we find our identity, our inheritance and our mission according to what we can see and verify as ours - according to what the bible calls "the flesh" - rather than according to the veiled rhythms of the Spirit of life. That is why adoption isn't charity - it's war.

The gospel of Jesus Christ means our families and our churches ought to be at the forefront of the adoption of orphans close to home and around the world. As we become more attuned to the gospel, we'll have more of a burden for orphans. As we become more adoption-friendly, we'll be better able to understand the gospel."

All of the above is from the book Adopted For Life by Russell Moore. Many more quotes to come.