Mistaken Identity
I amused myself last week looking at some free hints on a website where I had contributed my DNA analysis. At the time I got the DNA results, there were some surprises in heritage. In studying the records of ancestors that the website shared, I learned a hidden family secret. My mother’s favorite granny apparently was adopted as a toddler by the man we thought to be her father. She would have been too young to know about her mother’s marriage to him. She is buried near him and her mother and the rest of the Florida kin in a local cemetery, but her real father was from upstate New York and last lived in Missouri. No one knew.
That brings me to this idea. We are not who we think we are. We may feel inadequate because we have not achieved fame, wealth, education or the best in relationships. The world will bombard us with messages that we are not slim enough, smart enough or competent enough. Television commercials at this time of the year even imply we have to have a new car, a high-tech home, and a lively party with lots of alcohol and fast food. How ridiculous to enslave ourselves with the wrong mindset!
God says that we are valuable; He made us in His image. (See Genesis 1:27) He knows the thoughts and intent of our hearts, sees our frailties and still cares about the minute details of our daily lives. (See Psalm 139). His hand ordered the immense scope of the universe, yet He fulfilled many individual promises of the where and how Jesus would come to earth at just the right time.
“But when the set time had fully come, God sent his Son, born of a woman, born under the law, that we might receive adoption to sonship (full legal standing of an adopted male heir in Roman culture).Because you are his sons, God sent the Spirit of his Son into our hearts, the Spirit who calls out, ‘Abba, Father,’ So you are no longer a slave, but God’s child; and since you are his child. God has made you also an heir” (Galatians 4:4-7 NIV).
As I studied in the book of Acts this fall, I marveled that Jesus arrived into the Roman world which touched so many non-Jewish cultures. The vast reaches of known civilization were influenced by that empire and later by Christ’s message. He came as a Jew but died for all of us. As a Gentile, the revelation of the Messiah to me is a wonder. I, too, am adopted. I am His heir.
As we put up our turkey leftovers, locate our Christmas decorations, and perhaps cringe at the first of thousands of Christmas commercials that will play in the next few weeks, could we consider how much God loved us in sending His precious son?
He was not who they thought He was either.
The Advent season is my favorite season of the year. May I always remember what Christmas is all about. I am thankful that He adopted me through Christ Jesus.
Great post Luwana! Sometimes what we think we know isn’t the truth at all.