Unlike a bad earthly father who may have rejected and or failed to love you properly, God is a perfect father who desires to adopt every human, regardless of who they are or what they have done. While we were lost sinners and doomed to hell, God chose His Son to die for us, enabling those who believe and accept God’s grace to be justified forever, therefore becoming Christians. Being justified also means experiencing adoption in God’s family, and all of God’s children will always be eternally loved, totally forgiven, and completely accepted by a perfect Abba Father.
Seeing God as a perfect father
“The LORD is compassionate and merciful, slow to get angry and filled with unfailing love” (Psalm 103:8).
God is perfect in all ways and is Love; therefore, He perfectly embodies the role of a perfect father. Always incredibly desiring an intimate relationship with all of humanity, omniscient God, before the creation of man, was well aware of the fact every human would sin and reject Him. Although He knew every flaw of every human, every mistake and sin committed, every hurt and every tear shed by a child who experienced pain from a bad father, and all the hatred and sadness of every heart, He still loved us perfectly and still desired to adopt every human as His child. He also desperately wanted to heal every child of their wounds caused by rejection and being unloved and to fix them of their personal sin struggles, a potential tyrant that, in addition to rejection, also tyrannizes the soul.
Only through an intimate love relationship with the perfect Father in heaven can man reexperience the lost freedom, taken away from the presence of sin in people’s lives. Unfortunately, sin separated man from God, making enemies with a holy God that cannot coincide with sin. Even worse, because “the wages of sin is death”, all of His creation would be sentenced to hell, for that is the law, and God is a holy and just God. Thankfully the mercy and love of a perfect God desired man not to experience hell, and He still wanted to be a perfect father to all of us in this world. As God was inventing the world in His mind, being well cognizant of all our sins, God planned both justification and adoption, while thinking of you and me:
“For he chose us in him before the creation of the world to be holy and blameless in His sight. In love, He predestined us for adoption to sonship through Jesus Christ, in accordance with his pleasure and will. . .” (Ephesians 1:4-5)
“Justification is the main hinge on which salvation turns.” (John Calvin)
God developed a justification plan that would “declare us righteous despite our sins” and still “keep intact the holiness and justice of a perfectly holy and just God.” If He simply allowed sin to go unpunished, justice wouldn’t be served, and God would no longer be perfectly holy and just; therefore, He wouldn’t be a perfect God, nor a perfect father. In justification, sinless Jesus Christ, the Son of God, willingly chose to become our substitute to pay the penalty of humanity’s sins, enabling us to escape hell, stringent upon the condition we accept God’s gift of grace through faith. Those who receive this salvation, simultaneously experience justification (present acceptance by God as the world’s Judge) and then adoption as a child of God. Once adopted, the new Christian can then enjoy permanent intimacy with our Creator.
“But to all who receive him, who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God.” (John 1:12)
Below are some facts about justification I found on the Internet:
What is Justification by Faith? The Christian Justification (isaacopong.com)
“The root idea in justification is the declaration of God, the righteous judge, that the man who believes in Christ, sinful though he may be, is righteous—is viewed as being righteous, because in Christ he has come into a righteous relationship with God” (Ladd, G. E., A Theology of the New Testament, Eerdmans, 1974, p. 437).
”Justification is the doctrine that God pardons, accepts, and declares a sinner to be “just” on the basis of Christ’s righteousness (Rom 3:24-26; 4:25; 5:15-21) which results in God’s peace (Rom 5:1), His Spirit (Rom 8:4), and salvation. Justification is by grace through faith in Jesus Christ apart from all works and merit of the sinner (cf. Rom 1:18-3:28).”
What is justification? What does it mean to be justified? | GotQuestions.org
- Justification comes apart from the law; that is, we cannot earn justification through rule-keeping or our own good works. (Galatians 2:16, Romans 3:28)
- Justification is made possible in the sacrificial death of Christ; it is based on the shed blood of Christ.
- Justification is the free and gracious gift of God bestowed on those who receive by faith the sacrifice of Jesus Christ.
- Justification demonstrates the righteousness of God.
Related to God’s justification of the sinner are several things:
1) The remission of the penalty of sin, which was death (Romans 3:23; 8:1; 1 Peter 2:24).
2) The restoration to God’s favor, which had been lost due to our sin (John 3:36). So, justification is more than an acquittal; it is full acceptance. We are now friends of God (James 2:23) and co-heirs with Christ (Romans 8:17).
3) The imputation of righteousness, which is the reckoning of Christ’s righteousness to our account (Romans 4:5–8). We are declared to be righteous forensically(legally) because “God made him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God” (2 Corinthians 5:21).
We are justified, declared righteous forever, at the moment of our salvation.
Done with these sources found on Internet, let’s continue on
“Justification is way beyond anything that a human court of justice ever realizes. It is putting the sinner in the condition before God as if he had never sinned at all. It is giving him a standing in the merit of Jesus Christ of absolute innocency before God”. (A. C. Dixon)
“Through the death of Christ on the cross making atonement for sin, we get a perfect standing before God. That is justification, and it puts us, in God’s sight, back in Eden before sin entered. God looks upon us and treats us as if we had never sinned.” (A. C. Dixon)
Justification doesn’t excuse, ignore, or endorse our sins. Christ paid the penalty of our sins for us, satisfying the wrath of God. Thus, we are condemnation-free (Romans 8:1), and the Judge maintains His fairness and holiness, as sinners are “sinners who become righteous in His because of their faith in Christ”. Although we still sin daily, we will always be in perfect standing with a holy God; thus, Abba Father never will have a reason to not eternally love, totally forgive, or completely accept us when we don’t behave perfectly. Abba Father will always act as a perfect father to us, even when we sin, because God is perfect, and He is Love and a father to the adopted. He will always cherish and love us perfectly, loving us as much as He loves Jesus Christ, His perfectly beloved Son.
“See what great love the Father has lavished on us, that we should be called children of God!” (1 John 3:1)
“God does not justify us because we are worthy, but by justifying us make us worthy.” (Thomas Watson)
“God did not find us like an abandoned foundling bundled on the front step and irresistibly cute. He found us ugly and evil and rebellious. We were not attractive. We would not be easy children to deal with. And, what’s worse, God himself was angry with us. He hates sin and rebellion. We were then doubly “children of wrath.” (https://www.desiringgod.org/messages/adoption-the-heart-of-the-gospel)
We were enemies of God. We were sinfully wicked and impure, which a holy God detests. The distance between what we are and what God is is infinitely greater than any distance that any earthly father would ever cross to adopt a child. Still, God chose to adopt us. He absolutely had no need for us, but His perfect love totally wanted us.
Knowing beforehand our sinful states, He pre-decided to absolutely love, forgive, and accept His children before they were born and before God had His Son die for our sins. Regardless of who you are or what you have done, the Perfect Father desires to justify and adopt you, so you can be perfectly loved by Him.
“Jerry Bridges calls us to ‘consider that every sin you commit is an act of rebellion against the sovereign authority of God, or, as someone has said, an act of cosmic treason. So here we sit on death row, condemned as rebels, awaiting our execution. But instead of the death we deserve, we are made sons and daughters of the very King we have rebelled against. Instead of death, we get eternal life. Instead of wrath, we receive favor. Instead of eternal ruin, we are made heirs of God and coheirs with Christ. All this happened without our doing a single thing to earn the King’s favor, or any attempt on our part to make restitution for our rebellion. His Son has done it all for us.’ (The Gospel for Real Life)” (https://www.preceptaustin.org/adoption)
The price of our adoption was priceless: the life of God’s Son, crucified on the cross, to pay for our sins, enabling justification and adoption. This shows how dearly God loves every sinner and how valuable He deems us to be.
Every time we behave like a Prodigal Son, Abba Father will always welcome us back like the father did in the Prodigal Son parable. In that story, the father’s relentless love patiently waited for his lost son to return, and when he returned, the father didn’t reject or harshly treat the child. Instead, he chose to “celebrate in joy with a feast.”
If you aren’t a Christian, God has your adoption papers ready to be signed. He is waiting for your free will to choose Him. He absolutely wants to adopt you, but if you don’t accept Christ as your Savior, He cannot. Justice for your sins must be served, please allow Christ to be your substitute. It greatly grieves God to send anybody to hell, but if you don’t choose Him, God has no choice: He wouldn’t remain perfectly holy and just if He simply allowed sin to go unpunished.
“Adoption is the highest privilege that the gospel offers: higher even than justification.. . To be right with God the Judge is a great thing, but to be loved and cared for by God the Father is greater”. ( J. I. Packer)
For further information on how to become a Christian, please click on the Plan of Salvation hyperlink at the top of this website page.
Forrest Frank – Child of God (ft. Johnathan Pokluda) | Lyrics
A Root of Rejection And Mental Health Video
Description of Following YouTube Video By Mark DeJesus
People with mental health issues usually have a root of rejection, causing problems in their lives, with a lack of love from their parents during their childhood usually being the biggest source of rejection.
Satan’s goal is to “steal, kill, and destroy”, as He likes to create in us a sense of separation of love from God, people, and ourselves. Satan knows that “the love of God from adoption brings life”, which can alleviate the “root of rejection” that influences mental health problems. Therefore, Satan discourages all people, including those with mental illnesses, from experiencing God’s love, which can cast out fear and rejection.
If you have a mental illness, fight your “root of rejection” by connecting yourself to God’s love. If you aren’t saved, become a Christian today, so you can be adopted in God’s family, and then come as a child daily and receive His love, asking God to heal you from the root of rejection.
Click Here To Watch Video: S05 Ep09: A Root of Rejection & Mental Health