The greatest invitation we receive is that of God to join his family, to be loved by his perfect love, to forever be a child of the King.Yet to all who did receive him, to those who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God—John 1:12                                                    See what great love the Father has lavished on us, that we should be called children of God! And that is what we are! 1 John 3:1We have two adopted children in our family, and the more I consider the parallels between our adoption of them and God's spiritual adoption of us, I am overwhelmed. Just as our children were at the mercy of an orphanage and all of its darkness and danger, so are you and I as we are born into a fleshly body in this broken world. Our children were essentially helpless when it came to their own welfare and future. So it was with you and I before the work of Jesus on the cross and our acceptance to his invitation.We purposed to adopt our two children. Their rescue, their provision, their status as a a member of our family was born out of love and brought about by sacrifice. This is where the parallel breaks down somewhat;  as adoptive human parents we sacrificed to make their adoption a reality, but nothing compared to the sacrifice God made on our behalf.If you have accepted God's forgiveness made possible to you through his son Jesus' death and resurrection, then you were adopted into His family. It was born out of love and made possible by sacrifice. I still remember the day I met my daughter in person, months and months after only seeing her in pictures and praying for her from the other side of the globe. She came running to me as I bent down to embrace her. I wrapped her up in my arms because I already loved her. She didn't orchestrate her rescue or earn her way out of the darkness of that orphanage. We came for her.Jesus came for us out of love. He rescued us from ourselves and from this dark world.  We are his, sons and daughters of God. Not because we were so awesome, not because we worked hard enough to earn his favor, but because he saw us in our need and loved us. Let's celebrate that today.