“When I was 12 years old, I was adopted by my stepfather. He wasn’t perfect, but he worked hard to provide adequately for me and my four half-siblings. I remember the questions the judge asked my stepfather at the adoption hearing: Will you treat him as your own? Will you look after him financially, emotionally, and spiritually? He answered affirmatively, and then the judge pronounced him my legal father.

“I have thought of this in terms of Jesus. By accepting Christ as the means by which I am adopted and welcomed into His family (see 4:5), I gain the same inheritance promised to the seed of Abraham. I’m a joint-heir with Jesus, awaiting the ultimate treasure in eternity which can hardly even be described in this world.”

God has accepted you into His family, and it does not matter what your ethnic background or color of your skin is, what sins have marked your past or present, what slow or fast route you have taken to get there. He calls you His own and loves you fully, unconditionally, and eternally as His child.