Who Adopted Whom?

     I have another metaphor that recently came to mind while reading a book called, If GOD Already Knows, Why Pray? by Douglas F. Kelly.  I highly recommend this wonderful book.  It is the second time I'm reading it, and it is basically and expanded dissection of the LORD's Prayer, line by line.  Its very first point is how GOD is our intimate Father, because He is the Intimate Father of Yeshua/Jesus His true and only begotten Son.  We on the other hand are not "related" in such a way to the Father.  We are strangers, orphans on a very large planet called Earth.  This is going to be what seems to be a very basic and primary metaphor and very simple to understand.  Yet the truth of it when truly contemplated is really very deep.  

     Imagine the world as one great big huge orphanage.  GOD is the prospective adoptive parent. He goes to the orphanage, because He desires to adopt some orphaned children.  He did not have to, because He already had a son, but He wanted to expand His family.  Having sought out the orphanage, knowing its full history, because He instituted it, He would know what kind of orphans and counselors (clergy/Bible teachers) are there.  He would know what they are teaching the children. He would know what they are learning, and He would know the heart of each child.  He, therefore, could confidently know who was learning, and who was robotically obeying for rewards.  Some children weren't even interested in rewards, rather they just rebelled against the authorities of those running the orphanage, because they did not like the rules of the road.   

     Having known the heart of each "child" in the orphanage, YHVH GOD Himself would choose which child He would adopt.  He would adopt that child by visiting with him and reaching out to that child. He would introduce Himself and  reveal Himself as their adoptive Father, thus showing that child His intimate and loving nature. That child never even knew that there was an Adoptive Father seeking that child, until the Adoptive Father revealed Himself.  Most times the Father caught him completely off guard.   Because He knew the child, He knew that the child would respond to the Father's revelation of Himself, and come to accept and know Him almost immediately.  Not only would the Father choose and adopt that child, but He would set a standard and rules to live by in order for that child to remain in good graces with Him. Some are just adopted into the family and some of His adopted children were chosen for extraordinary tasks.  They get an extra dose of revelation of Who their Adoptive Father is.  

     Knowing that no child would ever be a perfect child, He arranged for His natural son to be a mediator, a go-between for the sinful child who wanted a Loving Heavenly Father and to be a part of His family.  That child would recognize and gratefully respond in kind to the Son's intervention by doing his very best to live up to the Father's standards and rules.  In other words, the Earth is GOD's house, and if we want to remain living under His "roof," being a part of His family, we have to live by His rules.  Most parents and adult children can understand that rule because I doubt hardly a child who hasn't heard that at least once from his loving parents.  They understand the rules, they respect the rules and they respect the parent who set the rules.  Those who don't understand or respect them leave.  

    The question then remains, and will forever remain, that if the child is officially adopted by the Father, does  the adoption become null and void by the child's own will.  If the child chooses to emancipate himself from the Father, breaking the bond, and seeking out legal and permanent separation from the Father, forgoing the Father's rules and standards, and if he stops respecting Him as the authority and parent, does He get to live with the Father for all eternity?  That is a question that has been debated among Bible Scholars for thousands of years, and I do not intend to answer it.  No one knows who truly is a (permanently)  adopted child of the Father, except the Father.  I suppose the Father takes in some strays out of His hospitality and Grace, but knows ahead of time that they won't stay.  That is His loving nature.  

    He is The Most High, The Almighty, the Creator of all of us, whether we acknowledge that truth or not, but He is Father to those whom He adopts into His personal family.  Let's look at some examples of adopted children. Let's start with the very first one, that would be Noah.  Genesis says that the whole world was bent on doing evil, but Noah found grace in GOD's eyes.  It doesn't say that he was righteous and blameless, as many of us have been falsely taught.  It just said GOD had Grace toward Noah and chose to adopt him and his family.  Nowhere in the Bible does it even imply that Noah or his wife, sons, and daughters-in-law were righteous and deserving in any way of being adopted, it just says that Noah found Grace in GOD.  

     After Noah was Abraham, but the truth of the matter is it was Abraham's father, Terah who was first called, but he only went halfway and stopped.  I think that he would probably be qualified as a stray who chose not to be in the Father's family exclusively.  GOD picked him out of the polytheistic orphanage and gave him the privilege of coming into a true and personally intimate relation to the Father, but he chose not to take it to the level he was called to.   Terah chose not to live and go further on with YHVH GOD, but to stay in Haran and continue with all he knew, which was worship, acknowledgement, reverence, and obedience to many gods.  Everyone then believed in many gods.  Even after Abram was called out and sent forth to the land of Canaan, Abram did not understand that there was only one GOD. It was just that YHVH GOD was the One who called him to follow Him. GOD called him out of Haran and promised to made him a father of a vast family of GOD.  Abraham ended up having many sons by the time his life was over, but Isaac was the only one adopted by GOD to be His very own, and carry His name.  When Isaac became a father, before either of the twins was born, before either had any opportunity to do good or evil, GOD had already picked Jacob to be adopted into His family. (Jacob I have loved, Esau I have hated. Romans 9:13)  (“Was not Esau Jacob’s brother?” declares the LORD. “Yet Jacob I have (chosen/adopted)  loved, Malachi 1:2b  (my interpretation).  Does this make sense?  

     All of GOD's heroes in the Bible were called to and received a special personal, intimate and direct  revelation from the Father Himself. None of them were looking for any kind of heroic work of ADONAI, many did not even know He existed.  (Moses, Gideon, King Saul, King David, Jeremiah, Amos, Elijah, Elisha, all of Jesus's disciples, and Saul/Paul, among many more.) It is GOD the Father who looks down upon our lives before we are even conceived, and it is only He who decides whom He will adopt as His own.  As a church people, whether Roman Catholic, Greek Orthodox, Protestant, or Evangelical, all our lives we have heard that we were either born/baptized into GOD's family as infants, or we asked Jesus into our lives and accepted him as our Lord and Savior.  NOTHING could be further from the truth.  We play no part in being chosen by the Father.  We play no part in our salvation.  We are chosen before we are even born, because the Father is not constricted to time and history.  He knows our nature and our hearts before we are even conceived in the womb, and we are the ones whom GOD chooses, based on His prior knowledge of who we will be.  All of the earth's future is laid out before Him, nothing is hidden from His knowledge, nor out of His total Sovereign control. 

     The next time an evangelical tells you that all you have to do is believe in Jesus, ask him into your heart and life, and make him your personal Savior,  know this, many believed in Jesus while He walked the earth, but to most, he was just a great Tzadik, a holy man, a teacher. Yet, to those whom YHVH GOD had already chosen, He was the mediator, the Messiah, the link between a far-off, out-of-reach, Holy GOD to our  intimate relationship with a yet still Holy and Loving Heavenly Father.  

     If you are reading this and know for sure that you are a part of this intimate family, know this, it was YHVH GOD who adopted you, it was not you who adopted Him.