Be who you are

Often, when children are adopted, particularly when they are older, they bring baggage. Despite repeated assurances that they are welcome as they are, that they are full heirs, they cling to their identity as orphans. Stories are readily found about adoptees hoarding food, or stealing, or seeking their old way of life. Persistent parents demonstrate love, yet some children never adopt their new identity as a part of the family.

Bob Lepine, one of the speakers today, reminded me of my own status as an orphan as he shared from Ephesians. He rightly concludes that the outline of Ephesians is, "this is who you were, this is who you are, be who you are."

Ephesians 2:1-3 tells me who I was. It reads, "And you were dead in the trespasses and sins in which you once walked, following the course of this world, following the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that is now at work in the sons of disobedience- among whom we all once lived in the passions of our flesh, carrying out the desires of the body and the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, like the rest of mankind.". I was living in the passions passions of my flesh. I was carrying out the desires of my body and mind. I was dead.

Ephesians 2:4-8 reminds who I am. "But God, being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which he loved us, even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ-by grace you have been saved-and raised us up with him and seated us with him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, so that in the coming ages he might show the immeasurable riches of his grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus. For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God.". I am a child made alive, by his mercy. Ephesians 1:4-5 reminds me that God chose me for adoption. He wants me in his family. I am in his family.

Yet I continue to live as I was, not as I am. Ephesians 4-6 teaches me to live as I am, not as I was. Not in a legalistic sense, but because it represents the promises of my life as I am...as an adopted child of my Father.

I like how CS Lewis wrote about this in the Weight of Glory: "If there lurks in most modern minds the notion that to desire our own good and earnestly to hope for the enjoyment of it is a bad thing, I submit that this notion has crept in from Kant and the Stoics and is no part of the Christian faith. Indeed, if we consider the unblushing promises of reward and the staggering nature of the rewards promised in the Gospels, it would seem that Our Lord finds our desires not too strong, but too weak. We are half-hearted creatures, fooling about with drink and sex and ambition when infinite joy is offered us, like an ignorant child who wants to go on making mud pies in a slum because he cannot imagine what is meant by the offer of a holiday at the sea. We are far too easily pleased."-CS Lewis