Keep Your Eyes on the Prize!!!!

      Yesterday I was reading about “adoption” and “sonship” in the New Testament. I fully believe that the “adoption” that the Apostle Paul is talking about has far more to do with maturity in the believer than it has to do with being born again. If someone tells me they were “adopted” into God’s family, I tell them, “Not me! I was born into God’s family. I have His DNA!” The “adoption” of which Paul is speaking is not the same as we ordinarily understand it,  i.e. legally making a child (not of your seed) part of your family so that you call him/her your “son/daughter”. While you have legally made such a one to be your child, he/she will never be your child physically or biologically; he does not carry your DNA.

     Paul was speaking of a process of his era whereby a tutor was given the task of educating and preparing a child for an adult life of maturity and responsibility, perhaps in the father’s business. To be “adopted” was, at the appropriate time, to be placed as a mature son in the father’s family. (Read Romans  8:14-25). While suffering is going to occur in this process, it is designed to produce maturity—mature sonship: “For the earnest expectation of the creation eagerly waits for the revealing of the sons of God…even we ourselves [not just creation] groan within ourselves, eagerly waiting for the adoption [to sonship], the redemption of our body...” (See NKJV and NIV)

      Recent revelations about an internationally known TV station owner’s extended extra-marital affair have caused us to pause and grieve--once again. Many comments could be made. Nevertheless, for us, we must remember to Keep Our Eyes on the Prize! And, seek to grow into mature sons whom God can entrust with His Kingdom business. Ones who will, like Moses and Joseph, choose righteousness and integrity above any sexual or other temporal desire. “By faith Moses…[chose] to suffer affliction with the people of God than to enjoy the passing pleasures of sin, esteeming the reproach of Christ greater riches than the treasures in Egypt, for he looked to the reward…” (Hebrews 11:25,26)

                                       LET’S KEEP OUR EYES ON THE PRIZE!!!