Marissa Henley

Encouraging weary women to hope in Christ alone

You’ve Been Adopted. {No Matter What Monday}

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God delights in bringing you into His family. Biblical encouragement, Scripture, and devotionals for women.

As Hurricane Irma barreled through the Caribbean a couple of weeks ago, I received an email from a friend letting us know how the hurricane could affect her four-year-old daughter in Haiti.

You might be wondering, why does my friend have a young daughter in Haiti, riding out a hurricane with other orphans rather than with her family?

My friend and her husband are in the process of adopting their daughter. They’ve been to meet her, she’s called them Mama and Papa, and she belongs to them. But due to paperwork and bureaucracy, they haven’t yet brought her home. She’s no longer an orphan, but she still feels the pain of separation from her Mama and Papa.

This difficult situation serves as a beautiful picture of our life in Christ. We’ve been adopted. God signed our adoption papers with the blood of His only begotten Son, Jesus Christ, bringing many sons and daughters into His family. We’re not home yet, but we are a part of God’s household.

[God] predestined us for adoption as sons through Jesus Christ, according to the purpose of his will. (Ephesians 1:5)

As adopted children, we share in the benefits and inheritance of God’s family. Adoption is a legal proceeding that gives the adopted child the same rights and privileges as a biological child. And as God’s adopted children, we share in a glorious inheritance with Christ.

We who have been adopted call God our Father just as Jesus did. Romans 8:15 says we’ve received the Spirit, by whom we cry, “Abba! Father!” These are the same words Jesus used in Mark 14:36 when He cried out in prayer to His “Abba! Father!” We can approach our Abba Father with confidence that He hears us and cares for us.

God adopts us according to His good pleasure. The Greek word that is translated “purpose” in this verse could also be translated “good pleasure.” God delights in bringing us into His family and making us His sons and daughters.

No matter what you face this week, God delights in bringing you into His family.

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God Sent Forth His Son {No Matter What Monday}

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gal-4-4

What comes to mind when you think of Christmas? Smiling family members sitting by a lighted tree, a fire roaring in the fireplace, hands wrapped around mugs of hot cocoa as you sing “Joy to the World” together? Kids dashing downstairs at dawn to find everything they ever wanted under the tree? Or maybe you think of the family members you’ll be missing this Christmas because you’re separated by distance, disagreement, or death. Perhaps your Christmas memories are painful, your current holiday situation is stressful, or your joy is clouded by the sadness of friends and family who are walking through the holidays without a loved one.

No matter where your family falls on the spectrum from delightful to dysfunctional, Christ was born to redeem you and bring you into God’s family.

Galatians 4:4-5: But when the fullness of time had come, God sent forth his Son, born of woman, born under the law, to redeem those who were under the law, so that we might receive adoption as sons.

This is why Jesus came. Not just to heal the blind and change water into wine. Not only to tell us how to love others. Not to start a new religion. He was God’s Son, born of a woman to redeem those who were under the law. We were living under the curse of our inability to keep God’s law, so Jesus came to redeem us with His perfect life and to die in our place.

And as He redeemed us, we were adopted into God’s family. As God’s children, we are loved fully and perfectly. Not because we are good children, but because we have a good Father. No matter how messy our earthly family interactions get, we can rest in our Father’s love demonstrated to us in our redemption and adoption through Christ.

No matter what you face this week, you have been redeemed and adopted because God sent forth His Son.

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His Steadfast Love Endures Forever {No Matter What Monday}

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Psalm 100-5

“Would you still love me if I murdered someone?” my son asked recently, and it wasn’t the first time. He loves to push the hypothetical limits and find out whether my love would survive. My answer is always the same: “I love you because you’re my child. Because you’re mine. Nothing will ever change that. You’ll always be my son, so I will always love you.”

I often tell my kids that I don’t love them because they obey or get good grades or treat each other kindly. I love them because they are my children. Because nothing can change their status as my children, nothing can change my love for them. They didn’t earn it, so they can’t lose it.

I desperately want my children to understand this concept so I can explain that God’s love is similar. Except God’s love is even better—it is perfect, and mine is not! I will always love my children, but I don’t always act lovingly toward them. I get impatient. I get angry. I lose my temper. I fail to keep my promises when I get busy, forget, or change my mind.

God loves us perfectly all the time. His love for us is rooted in our status as His children, not on our behavior or accomplishments. We could never earn His love. Christ earned it for us, and He died for us so we could share in His inheritance as children of God. Because we didn’t earn God’s love, we can’t lose it.

His love will never fail you. Nothing you do will ever change or lessen God’s perfect love for you. God’s love is a solid rock to cling to when trials come.

Psalm 100:5: For the Lord is good; his steadfast love endures forever, and his faithfulness to all generations.

No matter what you face this week, His steadfast love for you endures forever.

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