Adoption - A Repeat

I beg your indulgence -- we have company and we enjoy their companionship!  While my Bible reading will continue, I really want to spend extra time with them.  So, what you are getting today is a repeat from two years ago.  But I think it remains applicable!  Do you?

My Beloved Husband is an adoptee. When we met he told me that he did not know his birth parents. He fell into the category Ezra described:

… but they could not shew their father's house, and their seed, whether they were of Israel: (Ezra 2:59 KJV)

There are long stories about why we searched and how we located his birth family, but the focus today is on our own adoption.

God not only created us, He adopts us:

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: And if children, then heirs; heirs of God, and joint-heirs with Christ; (Romans 8:15-17a KJV)

And because ye are sons, God hath sent forth the Spirit of his Son into your hearts, crying, Abba, Father. Wherefore thou art no more a servant, but a son; and if a son, then an heir of God through Christ. (Galatians 4:6-7 KJV)

Before Paul wrote these verses, Jesus taught us that God is our father, and that we should look upon Him as such in our prayers:

After this manner therefore pray ye: Our Father which art in heaven, Hallowed be thy name. Thy kingdom come. Thy will be done in earth, as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread. And forgive us our debts, as we forgive our debtors. And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil: For thine is the kingdom, and the power, and the glory, for ever. Amen. (Matthew 6:9-13 KJV)

Whether we know our birth parents or not; whether we know our families or not; we can know that we are children of the King. And why do we want to know this?

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)