For Lord’s Day, March 10, 2013

Dear Saints

It is wonderful to see so many of you support in various ways our church’s participation of the Walk for Life today at Chollas Park to show we want to help bring an East County Pregnancy Care Center satellite clinic to our South Bay area.

In thinking about the goal to see babies saved, I am mindful of a conversation I had this week with a fellow Christian who was thankful for the birth mother’s choosing adoption rather than abortion.  It had us thinking about the various ways the Scriptures speak of our own adoption by God in Christ and how meaningful it is to be wanted and chosen by God Almighty.  We thought about Genesis 48:5 and how Jacob takes Joseph’s sons to be his own, just as if they were Reuben and Simeon.  We also thought of these verses I’d like to encourage you to meditate on and be moved by the Father’s love for you in Christ:

• … for in thee the fatherless findeth mercy. (Hosea 14:3)
• Because I delivered the poor that cried, and the fatherless, and him that had none to help him. (Job 29:12)
• … thou art the helper of the fatherless. (Psalm 10:14)
• When my father and my mother forsake me, then the LORD will take me up. (Psalm 27:10)
• A father of the fatherless, and a judge of the widows, is God in his holy habitation. (Psalm 68:5)
• And as for thy nativity, in the day thou wast born thy navel was not cut, neither wast thou washed in water to supple thee; thou wast not salted at all, nor swaddled at all. None eye pitied thee, to do any of these unto thee, to have compassion upon thee; but thou wast cast out in the open field, to the lothing of thy person, in the day that thou wast born. And when I passed by thee, and saw thee polluted in thine own blood, I said unto thee when thou wast in thy blood, Live; yea, I said unto thee when thou wast in thy blood, Live. I have caused thee to multiply as the bud of the field, and thou hast increased and waxen great, and thou art come to excellent ornaments: thy breasts are fashioned, and thine hair is grown, whereas thou wast naked and bare. Now when I passed by thee, and looked upon thee, behold, thy time was the time of love; and I spread my skirt over thee, and covered thy nakedness: yea, I sware unto thee, and entered into a covenant with thee, saith the Lord GOD, and thou becamest mine. Then washed I thee with water; yea, I throughly washed away thy blood from thee, and I anointed thee with oil. I clothed thee also with broidered work, and shod thee with badgers’ skin, and I girded thee about with fine linen, and I covered thee with silk. (Ezekiel 16:4-10)
• 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; if so be that we suffer with him, that we may be also glorified together. (Romans 8:15-17)
• 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)
• But when the fulness of the time was come, God sent forth his Son, made of a woman, made under the law, To redeem them that were under the law, that we might receive the adoption of sons. (Galatians 4:4-5)
• Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who hath blessed us with all spiritual blessings in heavenly places in Christ: According as he hath chosen us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and without blame before him in love: Having predestinated us unto the adoption of children by Jesus Christ to himself, according to the good pleasure of his will, (Ephesians 1:3-5)
• Behold, what manner of love the Father hath bestowed upon us, that we should be called the sons of God: (1 John 3:1)

Beloved, be thankful for your life and your Father.

Semper Reformanda,

Pastor Grant