About five years ago one of the Highest courts in an African country-Kenya- passed a ruling that now allows women to register the names of the fathers of children, born outside marriage without their consent on the birth certificate. The ruling declared parts of the Births and Death Registration legislation in Kenya as unconstitutional. It has then meant that fathers are now obligated to shoulder parental responsibility with the mother. Such fathers however have an opportunity to prove the claims of such mothers as untrue through DNA testing.
But is it possible for such a child to know the father’s identity and perhaps get financial support but never experience the love, care and security that a father may give? Is it possible to bear a name of a father but have no relationship whatsoever? Would a child adopted into a loving family not experience a better life -where they are not only provided for but loved unconditionally?
We read in the book of Ephesians 1 :4 That God chose us in Him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and without blame before Him in love, having predestined us to adoption as sons by Jesus Christ to Himself, according to the good pleasure of His will, to the praise of the glory of His grace, by which He made us accepted in the Beloved.
To predetermine means to determine (an outcome or course of events) in advance by divine will. That means that no matter which family we are born into, God chose us in Him beforehand, if only we can respond to his call to become his own.
You see, for every country, the registration of a birth gives a child protection and access to certain privileges and rights as a citizen of that country. The well-meaning judge in the Kenyan High court ruling was looking out for the rights of the child.
But let’s consider Moses. He was born to Hebrew parents at a time when Israelites had continued to increase in number. In fact, Pharaoh’s biggest concern was that the Israelites would become too strong for the Egyptians. He then ordered all the midwives to kill every male child born to the Hebrew women. But God had predestined Moses as a deliverer for the Israelites. He led his mother to take him to the river that Pharaoh’s daughter used to bathe and she assigned his sister to watch over him. When Pharaoh’s daughter heard a baby crying by the reeds in the river bank- she knew it was one of those Hebrew babies- and so she took the boy and named him Moses meaning- Because I drew him out of the water.
Isn’t God the greatest strategist? He had planned ahead of time for Moses to be adopted into the Pharaoh’s family. He grew up with the same rights and privileges as an Egyptian royal. Adoption makes one a legal son or daughter in a family that they were not born into. It therefore meant that Moses was no longer a slave like his family and fellow Hebrews. He was brought up as an Egyptian even his name was Egyptian. God would then bring him back to negotiate with Pharaoh for the release of the Hebrews this time? as an Israelite and not as an Egyptian prince. We can read this story in Exodus 2:1-10.
We read further in Galatians 4:4 that when the fullness of the time had come, God sent forth His Son, born of a woman, born under the law, to redeem those who were under the law, that we might receive the adoption as sons. And because you are sons, God has sent forth the Spirit of His Son into your hearts, crying out, “Abba, Father!” Therefore, you are no longer a slave but a son, and if a son, then an heir of God through Christ.
We may not choose the families we are born into but in responding to the call to accept Jesus into our hearts- we make a deliberate choice to join the family of God. God then adopts us as his sons as he predestined in love. He cancels our debt to sin such that we are no longer slaves to sin; he gives us his name and makes us heirs of his kingdom. Moses was born a slave but grew up as an Egyptian prince and fulfilled God’s purposes in his life time. Will you accept adoption as a child of God?
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