I am preparing for a mission trip to Ocosingo Mexico in the southern most state Chiapas. I am writing this to share with you my heart for this trip, and to seek your prayers above all and if God so leads, some financial support.
I started my study this morning and soon found myself looking at a verse in John 8:44
When Jesus said to some Pharisees. “You are of your father, the devil, and it is your will to practice the lust and gratify the desires of your father…”
WHEW, WHAT A WAY TO START…BUT
Before God sent His Son to redeem us from our lost condition, we were the children of our father the devil. He was not a good father. He is a liar, and a thief. I Peter 5:8 tells us he seeks to destroy us. He did not care for our present, and surely not for our eternity.
He was/is a loveless father who abandoned us. He desires to be God, and to be worshipped (Isa. 14:13), we are only a means to an end. He does not care for us.
It is no surprise then that men whose will it is to practice the lust and gratify the desires of their father the devil, also abandon, and give no loving thoughts to their children.
But there is hope.
I am memorizing Romans 8. I have only made it through the first 8 or 9 verses, but as I studied this morning, I reread a familiar couple of verses in that chapter. They are verses 14-16.
“For as many are led by the Spirit of God, they are the sons of God. For ye have not received the spirit of bondage again to fear; but ye have received the Spirit of adoption, whereby we cry, Abba, Father. The Spirit itself beareth witness with our spirit, that we are the children of God.”
How utterly glorious and wonderful that you and I, by adoption, now belong to the Great and Mighty God and Creator. How wonderful, that we have been bought with a price, and adopted into this wonderful family and that eternity and blessings abound for us. Heirs with Christ. (Galatians 4:4-7 tells of our heirship with Christ).
This salvation, this adoption is a free gift. We did nothing to deserve. But James reminds us that faith without works is dead. (James 2:17 - 26)
A lady Journalist by the name of Maranda Russell writes in the Dayton Adoptive Families Examiner,
“Studies done by The Donaldson Adoption Institute show that more and more adults who were adopted as children are continuing the tradition and adopting children themselves. In fact, their statistics showed that about 30% of adopted children go on to adopt a child themselves when they grow up.”
It is a wonderful thing to know that those who have been adopted, seek to adopt others. But it surely surprised me that the numbers were only 30%, and then I thought about the church.
How often do we remembering our lost condition, seek out those whose father is the devil, that they too may receive this free gift of adoption.
Today I am not asking you to adopt a child, or even to risk stepping out and sharing your faith, that another my be adopted into Gods family and receive the blessings of sonship along with us.
Today I am only asking that you assist me in getting to Chiapas, that I might begin to fulfill the commission God has lain on my heart. A commission to go out and worship God by my actions to help care for the orphans in their afflictions and needs.
This requires pray and fasting. It takes money.
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