Adoption

These sought their register among those that were reckoned by genealogy, but it was not found: therefore were they, as polluted, put from the priesthood. (Nehemiah 7:64 KJV)

I know how they felt. According to the Dawes Commission, my great-grandfather’s generation was not eligible to be included in the Cherokee Rolls. There is no doubt he, and his cousins, descend from Ahneswakie and her husband, John Thompson. There was no doubt that Ahneswakie was Cherokee. Yet membership was denied because parents and grandparents were not on earlier rolls – just as the children of Barzillai, above.

Through Christ, we’ve been offered the opportunity to change our genealogy. We’re allowed to adopt our parent:

But as many as received him, to them gave he power to become the sons of God, even to them that believe on his name: (John 1:12 KJV)

Woowhoo!! That’s hard for some to accept, but it’s repeated over and over again:

For as many as 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: (Romans 8:14-16 KJV)

For it is God which worketh in you both to will and to do of his good pleasure. …That ye may be blameless and harmless, the sons of God, without rebuke, in the midst of a crooked and perverse nation, among whom ye shine as lights in the world; (Philippians 2:13, 15 KJV)

Behold, what manner of love the Father hath bestowed upon us, that we should be called the sons of God: therefore the world knoweth us not, because it knew him not. Beloved, now are we the sons of God, and it doth not yet appear what we shall be: but we know that, when he shall appear, we shall be like him; for we shall see him as he is. (1 John 3:1-2 KJV)

That is so awesome to me. That He who created all loves us to the point of forgiveness and reconciliation. Rather than punishment, He offers reconciliation. Truly, He spoke:

For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, saith the LORD. For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways, and my thoughts than your thoughts. (Isaiah 55:8-9 KJV)

Can we, as Job, acknowledge the roll of Creator that God holds?

Who knoweth not in all these that the hand of the LORD hath wrought this? In whose hand is the soul of every living thing, and the breath of all mankind. (Job 12:9-10 KJV)

There is yet scripture to be fulfilled, just as other portions have been fulfilled earlier: And he began to say unto them, This day is this scripture fulfilled in your ears. (Luke 4:21 KJV)

Before all is fulfilled, we may know the results of our adoption: These things have I written unto you that believe on the name of the Son of God; that ye may know that ye have eternal life, and that ye may believe on the name of the Son of God. (1 John 5:13 KJV)