/*Adopt Ye, One Another, Even as I Have Adopted You: April 2008*/

"Adopt Ye, One Another, Even as I Have Adopted You..."

Not Shaker Theology, not a cult and not any sort of propaganda. An approach, by Heaven's Grace, to the Kingdom of God and His Righteousness. Do you want to see it? Do you want to see the Kingdom Of Christ? Say yes.

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Hopeless, Pointless, Useless except for the Grace of God

Sunday, April 20, 2008

The Definition of Insanity

Well, okay. So, you've heard it before. One of the definitions of insanity is doing the same thing - repeatedly - and expecting NOT the same results.

For AGES we've been focused on personal empire and genetic legacy INSTEAD OF claiming the lost, the last and the least to make of them our own family. AND WE WONDER WHY WE KEEP HAVING ISSUES LIKE POVERTY, RAMPANT DISEASE, GANG VIOLENCE, WAR, EXPLOITATION, people on the GOVERNMENT DOLE and other sad relics of our so called civilization.

HELL--OH? Could it be time for a change? Ya THINK? Look, you'd probably make BEAUTIFUL babies but you could also make an even MORE beautiful family in Christ Jesus by adopting people that NEED YOU and that NEED HIM! (Are any of the rest of you noticing how I keep using all caps to 'shout' more these days?) Besides, there's NEVER gonna be a shortage of people. We need to get busy loving the people that're already HERE! AND, we need to teach THEM how to adopt and love as well!

Too often, in the past, we've thought of adoption as something to fulfill US as opposed to pursuing adoption as did our Lord and Savior. He pursued adopting us because we need Him and not because He 'needs' us. (Well, DUHH! The Living God in Christ Jesus is without ANY need whatever - it's not Him that needs us. It is us that needs HIM. So, get over it.)

It was my privilege to be in Lexington, KY recently and I was thrilled to hear the word of The Living God proclaimed by a young Associate Pastor at The Rock/La Roca UM church on North Limestone. If you're not familiar with this congregation, they're a very missions oriented church with a real heart for those who're 'vulnerable'. Anyway, this precious young man challenged us all to again consider a concept introduced by the Senior Pastor: "Love them as if they are our own".
Hey, y'all! LISTEN TO THIS YOUNG PASTOR, would you please? If you don't believe me, believe him. And if you don't believe him, BELIEVE GOD'S HOLY WORD!! John 13:34 - "YOU WILL", says The Lord Jesus, "LOVE EACH OTHER AS I HAVE LOVED YOU". And my friends, Jesus Christ has loved us as if we belonged to Himself!

No, we DIDN'T belong to Him before He adopted us! We were conceived in ignorance and arrogance, quickened into suffering and disease and given heartbeats of insolence and defeat. We were born into poverty and despair, nurtured in worthlessness and hopelessness and we existed in a COUNTERFEIT of Life until we were claimed (adopted) by the Living God in Christ Jesus!
We were not born into Jesus family; we had to be REBORN to get into Jesus family. Jesus said, "I AM the way, the truth and The LIFE" and sisters and brothers, "we ain't GOT no 'Life' " unless we get it from Christ Jesus. EVERYTHING ELSE IS A POORLY WROUGHT FAKE!! Your precious Momma and Daddy probably would have given you "Life" if they could've but all they could give you was DEATH (and disease). If your Daddy and Momma could've given you "Life", we wouldn't even need Christ Jesus. And I, for one, don't even want to consider a world where Jesus is unavailable (or even unwelcome)!

The young Pastor at The Rock was bringing his message that Sunday with the title "Plundering the Egyptians" and I respond with "AMEN" and I say "adoption is how we do it". (?????) Yes, that's right: "By adopting from among the most vulnerable of people - the aged, the diseased, the disabled, the discarded, the outcast, the halt, the lame, the blind - by adopting INSTEAD OF reproducing, we plunder the very ranks of the enemy, not just possessions but the population of the enemy itself." We're stealing a whole nation - we're stealing a whole civilization - and we're evacuating that dying 'civilization' into the Kingdom of God on Earth, as it is in Heaven. By adopting instead of reproducing, we're saying that reconciling the lost is more important to us than genetic legacy. By adopting instead of reproducing we are acknowledging the truth that we have something FAR more important to do than to pursue genetic descendancy and personal empire. By adopting instead of reproducing, we're imitating Christ Jesus Who did not breed (no matter what Dan Brown says) and Who was a eunuch for the sake of the 'household' of The Father.

Or we could ourselves just continue being slaves (as the young pastor warned) and we could continue in our INSANITY and just keep on doing what we've been doing over and over again. And we could expect different results, THIS time just like we expected different results every time in the past. After all, every thing's going to be alright and we can just put our heads back into the sand, can't we? All that really matters is that I get to have my American Dream, my little empire and my own genetic lineage, isn't it? Isn't it really all about ME?

Sounds to me like about as close to a definition of madness as I've heard.

Can you hear me PLEADING with you? "Adopt ye, one another, even as I have adopted you..."