Recently I heard a talk about the Christian’s adoption in Christ, and how this truth is often neglected. The speaker quoted J.I. Packer’s comments about this, and the truth of what he had to say resonated in me. It made me dust off my copy of Knowing God, and reread this section on adoption.
You sum up the whole of New Testament teaching in a single phrase, if you speak of it as a revelation of the Fatherhood of the holy Creator. In the same way, you sum up the whole of New Testament religion if you describe it as the knowledge of God as one’s holy Father. If you want to judge how well a person understands Christianity, find out how much he makes of the thought of being God’s child, and having God as his Father. If this is not the thought that prompts and controls his worship and prayers and his whole outlook on life, it means that he does not understand Christianity very well at all. For everything that Christ taught, everything that makes the New Testament new, and better than the Old, everything that is distinctively Christian as opposed to merely Jewish, is summed up in the knowledge of the Fatherhood of God. “Father” is the Christian name for God…
It is a strange fact that the truth of adoption has been little regarded in Christian history…Do I know my own real identity? My own real destiny? I am a child of God. God is my Father; heaven is my home; every day is one day nearer. My Saviour is my brother; every Christian is my brother too. Say it over and over to yourself first thing in the morning, last thing at night, as you wait for the bus, any time that your mind is free, and ask that you may be enabled to live as one who knows it is all utterly and completely true. For this is the Christian’s secret of –a happy life? –yes, certainly, but we have something both higher and profounder to say. This is the Christian’s secret of a Christian life, and of a God-honouring life: and these are the aspect of the situation that really matter. May this secret become fully yours, and fully mine. (J.I. Packer, Knowing God, pp. 182, 207-208).
Later that week I was trying to encourage a brother who had experienced one crisis after another in recent days: the death of a loved one, major surgery and an unhappy living situation. I quoted Packer’s words. I am a child of God. God is my Father… This truth encouraged my friend just as it encouraged me. This simple confession of the wondrous truth of who we are in Christ was deeply encouraging and life changing.
It speaks to how the Savior has answered the greatest question of all, the question of identity. Who we are is ultimately not defined by our earthly parents, our race, our sins, others' opinions of us, our status, our social class or by the brands of products we use, regardless of what the world tries to tell us. Our Identity is not defined by our wealth or poverty, nor by our education or lack of it. It is not determined by our accomplishments or by our lack of them. Our identity is not so much a matter of who created us, but who has redeemed us. Christ has made us children of God. We are not so by birth or by nature but we are by so by redemption.
The philosopher Rene Descartes is credited with saying "I think, therefore I am." The Christian has much more solid ground for his or her being. I AM, therefore I am.
Packer and the friend who pointed me to him reminded me of this great truth, which I have used to “preach the Gospel to myself.” Packer inspired me to write my own confession. I use it in the morning when I get up, and in the evening when I go to bed to remind myself of who I am in Christ. May it be a help to you:
I Am His and He is Mine
God is my Father. He loves me and he chose me before he created the world. In love he sent Jesus Christ into the world to redeem me.
Jesus is my Savior. He died for my sins and rose triumphant from the grave. He purchased my forgiveness and made me right with the Father. He makes me free to not sin. He defeated the Devil, overcame the world and sent the Holy Spirit into the world for me.
The Holy Spirit is my Counselor and Comforter. He lives and reigns in me and gives me eternal abundant life. He leads me into all truth and enables me to follow Christ. He keeps me and sustains me.
I am not my own nor do I belong to this world. I belong to my gracious Father and to my faithful Savior. I am part of God’s family, the Church. Heaven is my home and my eternal destiny because I am a child of God. I was bought with a price.
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