Do you have room?

I stumbled across a series on adoption from the church at Battle Creek in Tulsa, Oklahoma. Dr. Alex Himaya shares a very powerful message on orphans, adoption, and the Christian's role in caring for orphans. Here are some of my notes.

- It’s hard for us to grasp just how many orphans there are in the world. But here is a visual - if you lined up all the orphans in the world, shoulder to shoulder, hand to hand, you could go around the world 3 times, with about 1,700 orphans per mile. If you drove one mile every minute, you would see 1,700 children per mile. How long would it take you to stop and help just ONE child?
- Question: Where is God with all of the orphans? What does He have to say about it?

- Answer: God values children! And He values orphans (Deuteronomy 10:17-22; Exodus 22; Psalm 27, Psalm 68; John 14). God also values adoption (Psalm 68).

- God is the Father to the fatherless

- God calls us, the Church, to protect the orphans

- God promises to bless those who provide for orphans (Deuteronomy 13, 24)

- Orphans are not a "footnote" in scripture. Over 60 times in the New Testament, God calls us to care for orphans.

- Pure and undefiled religion is to care for the orphans (James 1:27)...so why does it say this in James?

1. Orphans can't repay (what a beautiful picture of us trying to repay God...we can't!)
2. To teach us about the love of God (orphans are slow to love us back...just as we are slow
to love God back)

3. To teach us to be sacrificial
- Jesus Christ was adopted! Joseph adopted Jesus. Jesus’s lineage is traced through His adoptive father’s blood line…not his biological mother Mary’s. For Jesus, adoption was not Plan B. It wasn’t second best.

-The first century Church opposed a lot of things….good things. They had a high view of life…because of what the Bible said. And they acted on God's Word. They took orphans into their families and loved them as their own children. Our calling today is no different than the first century Church.

-How can we have 150 million orphans…and the Christian Church in America do nothing about it? Every day 25-30k children die.

- God is pro-life. He is the Creator of life. God’s heart is for adoption. You cannot be pro-life and not be pro-adoption.

- When it comes to adoption, the supply is never the issue with God. He owns it all.

- As believers, it is our job to adopt. We should be first to bring these children into our homes. And God wants His children to be in Christian homes!

- Key Points
1. Caring for orphans through adoption is normal (according to God)

2. Adoption is the most beautiful manifestation of God’s love on the planet - think about a father going to the ends of the earth to bring a child home. Is that not what God did for us?

3. Adoption will lead to missions…which leads to God’s ultimate priority of worship

4. True life is only found in surrender to God and His will

Did you know that more than 1/3 of Americans have considered adoption, but only 2% actually adopt? There are an estimated 2 billion Christians in the world. Even if there were only 1 billion Christians in the world, if 1 in every 12 Christian couples responded to this call, we would eradicate the orphan problem altogether. Are you being led by God to adopt? Pray for His guidance and wisdom.

Luke 12:48 - From everyone who has been given much, much will be required; and to whom they entrusted much, of him they will ask all the more.

Take a look at the video below of one family that decided they have room...