Fast Day 4
Mountain of Influence: Family
Day 1 – Worship
John 15:15
I do not call you servants anymore.... I have called you friends, because I have made known to you everything I have heard from my Father.
Ephesians 1:5-6
In love He predestined and lovingly planned for us to be adopted to Himself as [His own] children through Jesus Christ, in accordance with the kind intention and good pleasure of His will— to the praise of His glorious
grace and favor, which He so freely bestowed on us in the Beloved [His Son, Jesus Christ].
Do you remember your childhood days when you would go and play at a friend’s house? For me, my friends’ parents always embraced me as their own. I was welcomed to stay and play, partake in family activities, and was even fed (very well). Yet at some point, our time together came to an end and I had to leave.
Before Jesus died on the cross, He proclaimed to His disciples that they were no longer His servants, but His friends. Yet, through His great love and grace, God the Father reached beyond temporarily filling his house with his Son’s friends, and instead made a way for His home to be filled with adopted sons and daughters for eternity! God adopted us as his own.
If you know anything of adoption, it’s a pretty extensive process. To take a child and not only love them as your own but bring them into your family permanently can take months or even years to complete in the legal system. Further, many adoptions come with a substantial price tag. But God spared no expense for us. He paid the immense price through the death and resurrection of his Son Jesus so that we could remain in his home, as His children, for all eternity.
Your Turn
Prayer:
Heavenly Father, thank you for not just loving me, but loving me so much to adopt me as your own child. Help me to live in that spirit of sonship as your child every day. In Jesus name, amen.
Fast Thought:
As you seek the Lord, see yourself as His child being embraced in his arms for the first time after he adopted you.
Song: