Stanza #6
What makes you feel valuable? We often feel a sense of belonging and acceptance through our accomplishments or usefulness to a person, organization, or cause. Maybe while growing up, we mistook parental praise as acceptance. Maybe we’ve never felt accepted unless we performed or made ourselves “useful.” We may have felt so wrong, so stained, we couldn’t imagine undeserved acceptance. Well, I have good news and bad news. The bad news is there is nothing we can do in ourselves to be acceptable to a holy God. The good news is that God loved us so much that He had made a way to become accepted as family. It’s not because we earned it or that we are so great, but only because His love for us is so great.
He predestined us[a] for adoption to himself as sons through Jesus Christ, according to the purpose of his will, to the praise of his glorious grace, with which he has blessed us in the Beloved..
Ephesians 1:5-6
Not Slaves but Sons and Daughters
God didn’t send His only Son for us to be his slaves. Slaves aren’t free to have any choice. They have to work and earn their way, being subject to the whims and anger of their masters. Not only does God love us from a distance. Humanity left God for what we thought was better. Mankind is imperfect, and each of us is affected by mankind’s separation from a loving God. While we were trapped in our waywardness, God made a way to adopt us back into His family. It’s not because we could be useful and not because we deserved it; it’s only because He loves us. He sent His Son as a child, that we may become His children once again. Let’s not allow the moments of God’s true, pure acceptance to pass us by.
The Spirit you received does not make you slaves, so that you live in fear again; rather, the Spirit you received brought about your adoption to sonship.[a] And by him we cry, “Abba,[b] Father.” 1 The Spirit himself testifies with our spirit that we are God’s children.
Romans 8:15-16
“Will we let this moment pass us by?
Deaf to the sound of His humble cry?
He came as a babe, and He’s here again
To offer acceptance to wayward men.”
THe holy sound, Stanza 6
