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Do you believe that we're all children of God?

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I remember having this debate a few years ago with one of my kids and they

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presented very strongly that we had to all be considered children of God because

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we've all been made in his image. We know that from Genesis and we've been

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fearfully and wonderfully made which Psalm 13914 says and yes indeed that's

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true and it sounds like when you first hear it you're like oh yeah right we're

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all children of God but the Bible also teaches that it is only through adoption,

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spiritual adoption that we become children of God. Alright today we're just

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going to break down a little bit of what it means like how that came about and

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then what it means for our own lives and then I'm going to pray for you and I

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can't wait for you to get ahold of this a little bit more because when I did it

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completely changed the way I live and I'm excited for you to grab ahold of this

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as well. So did you know that only about 2% of the global population has been

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adopted and perhaps you're in that 2% you probably know somebody well let me

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tell you our family is intimately familiar with adoption check out this

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list. My grandmother was adopted by her stepfather when her mom remarried. That

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stepfather just happened to be a descendant of Aaron Burr which I'm not sure how cool that is but

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Aaron Burr's grandfather was John Edwards who was a revivalist and preacher at the

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first great awakening. That's pretty cool. My father was adopted by his adopted father

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but he didn't know it until a few years ago. My mom was adopted by her mom's best

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friends after her mom tried to die from an ectopic pregnancy and her father was

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still living. Yeah that's another crazy story. My husband was adopted at six months

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old, six months of age, out of a foster home because his mom, his biological mom

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realized that she just wasn't going to be able to care for him and then that same husband and myself

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actually adopted the last two of our five children internationally from Ethiopia.

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Very possibly the best decision that we ever made except of course also the other

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three kids that we birthed. The bottom line is adoption is God's idea not ours.

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It's the way that God chose to put together his family. Isn't that something

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that wasn't through natural birth? He did it through adoption and just like you

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know when we adopted our our last two kids we had to really plan it out right.

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We had to plan out. It was pretty involved and not yeah it was just a

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little bit costly and for God it was incredibly costly because it meant that

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he sent his one and only son. He did have a son there was only one by natural

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birth and that was Jesus and he sent him to live a perfect life here on earth

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and then to die a criminal's death in our place the death that we deserved. But

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then he was resurrected to new life and that is our inheritance as children of

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God. That is amazing. Galatians 4, 4, and 5 says this, God sent him to buy

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freedom for us who were slaves to sin slaves to the law so that he could

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adopt us as his very own children. We typically understand adoption in the

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light of bringing a baby home right that's just a common thing although as

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in the case of my family there's so many ways that adoption happens but in

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Jesus day it was not uncommon for a father to adopt another son into his

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family perhaps even get rid of the natural born son that he had if he was

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deemed to be unworthy. Can you imagine if we did that today? Kind of a scary

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thought. But in that day they could take a young man or even a grown adult who

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might be older than the father himself to be considered his son they would pay

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off his debts they would give him the full rights of sonship and the

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inheritance that came with it he was then entitled and even though you were

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able to disown your natural born son once you adopted a son it was

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irrevocable you couldn't take it back. Well so similar to that is when God

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adopted adults each of us we are given the full rights of sonship being a son

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or daughter of his with those full rights of inheritance and he doesn't take

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it back. What a privilege that we have when I began as I mentioned at the

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beginning when I began to realize what this meant in my own life that I was a

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daughter of the King a daughter of the creator of the world that he chose me to

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be his child and that I had full rights of inheritance not just some day in the

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future far away in heaven but right here on earth I've got access to so many of

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those rights well it changed the way I looked at my circumstances it changed

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the way that I looked at my life and I realized all those voices that had told

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me I wasn't worthy and and I wasn't you know maybe I was rejected whatever it

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was that I didn't have to pay attention to those because I knew the truth and

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that's what I want you to be able to grab ahold of as well so you're gonna

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want to stick around at the end just a couple minutes when this video is over

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you're gonna want to listen and engage with the worship meditation because we

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are crafting we're writing worship meditations that go along with the

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devotionals so we don't just hear the truth but we get them into our system

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they can go deeper and they can begin to change the way we think the way we feel

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and then the way we act because here's the wonderful truth research has shown

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that when we meditate on a good God for at least 12 minutes at a time well it

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begins to form new healthy neural pathways in our brain that's new ways of

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thinking that align with the one that we're meditating on so in this case when

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we meditate on our inheritance from God and the very God who gave that to us and

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what it means for our lives we begin to understand more we begin to have a greater

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revelation of what it means that we're adopted as a son and as a daughter of

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God and so you want to engage with that and you want to do it more than once

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because the deeper it goes the more we understand it the more our behavior

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reflects that truth and that reality so before I pray for you I just want to say

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thank you for those who have subscribed if you haven't done so yet please do so

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so you're notified thanks for sharing this with other people and for liking and

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if you've got a prayer request we would love to be able to pray for you put it

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in the comments and we will lift you up before the Lord so father we just thank

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you that you have given us the opportunity to be called the children of

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God we thank you that you have given us the opportunity to receive full rights

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of inheritance as your children to be considered heirs of God co heirs with

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Christ adopted into your family as Romans 8 17 talks about father for every voice

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that would come against your children we just rebuke right now in the very

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strong name of Jesus and we say be quiet and may the truth come to light that we

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are your children we are worthy just simply because of you we can run forward

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into going after what you've called us to do because we are your children we

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thank you that your well never runs dry that you have given us wellsprings of

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life and we run to you our Abba father we love you so much thank you Jesus