Adoption

This coming Sunday is Mother’s day. It can be a wonderful day of celebrating the women in our lives, however it can also be a difficult day for so many.  People who, have lost mothers; or are estranged from their mothers; or may not even know who their biological mother is.

When my parents came from India, they didn’t know a soul in Canada. Their biological families lived thousands of miles away in a time when a telegram was the quickest form of communication.  If you don’t know what a telegram is, google it ;)

When I was 6 or 7 years old — after my parents separated  — a sweet elderly couple ‘adopted’ my mother as one of their own.  Grace had become my mother’s “Canadian” mother.  Grace, and her husband Dave, loved my mom, and cared for her. They helped her in so many ways and they wanted nothing in return. They had become her Canadian parents and by extension, I had adopted grandparents who showed me incredible love and care.

Certainly it was different than a legal adoption of a child, but for me at that time, it was no different.  I would visit them after school and they always welcomed me with cookies and juice. We played card games together and they always showed interest in what I made in school. (I made some awesome stuff, by the way! ) and exhibited such pride when I showed them my report card.  Though we were not related by blood there was no doubt that we had become a part of their family.
That sense of being a part is only a glimpse of what it is like with God.

Not only has God forgiven us, justified us, and given us free access into His presence, but God has also adopted us into God’s family. Paul writes in Ephesians 1:4-5 (NLT)

 4 Even before he made the world, God loved us and chose us in Christ to be holy and without fault in his eyes. 5 God decided in advance to adopt us into his own family by bringing us to himself through Jesus Christ. This is what he wanted to do, and it gave him great pleasure.

I stand in awe of a God who has the power and desire to forgive me. But by adopting us, God is going further. God is saying, "Don't just stand there in awe of me. Come close to me." Adoption speaks of a close relationship. And God says, "I want you as my daughter. I want you as my son”.

Whatever your family situation, whether you celebrate Mother’s day or not, I pray you will remember that because of your faith in Jesus, you are part of the family of God forever… and that is something to celebrate.

Celebrating faithfulness!

This weekend marks Amberlea Church’s 40th Anniversary Kick off.  It will be a year of celebrating this amazing God-filled; God-led church in the Amberlea community.

As the 40th anniversary Committee meet over the past serval we wanted to ground the celebrations in Scripture.  Colossians 2:7 became that verse:

Being rooted and built up in him, strengthened in the faith as you were taught, and overflowing with thankfulness.

This verse describes who we are and who we want to be as a church. Rooted, built up, strengthened and thankful! But this is only part of the verse.

So then, just as you received Christ Jesus as Lord, continue to live your lives in him, 7 rooted and built up in him, strengthened in the faith as you were taught, and overflowing with thankfulness.  Colossians 2: 6-7

Paul is encouraging us to not just begin our walk with Christ but continue to grow in Him. And that is what we aim to do at Amberlea.

Brian and I have been married for 37 years in December and I still remember the day that Brian proposed to me. I I get this picture when I read these verses of what if it would have looked like he got down on one knee and he said, “Mona will you marry me?”  I say,  “yes” and there's this excitement, we hug, it's beautiful and then I walk away because that was the moment and that's it.

The truth is that sometimes what happens to us as Christians we start our relationship with God by accepting God and saying God I surrender to you, I believe in what Jesus did for me but it's almost like we stop there.

Accepting Jesus into our lives is opening a door to the rest of our relationship with Jesus and so the same is true here in verse 6.

It says we accept but we must continue to follow Him. So the question is how do we follow Him?

Paul is very clear in this passage that’s what I love about this scripture is it's very clear what we should do.

So I want to give you four things to describe how we need to grow in our relationship with God.

1. Be firmly rooted. We should be firmly rooted. We have a huge maple tree in our backyard… and because of that I find little maple trees trying to take root all throughout the garden, and lawn. If I get them early enough they are easy to pull out but if I don’t catch them early and those roots get a chance to grow and spread out it’s hard to pull them out.

As Christians we need to have the attitude that we will not be moved no matter what the world is saying around us.

We will not be moved. We will be fully rooted in the Word of God, so when the storms come those roots anchor us and keep us

1. We need to have our lives built up on Him. Jesus is the foundation. The foundation is the most critical part of the building. A building can only go as high as the foundation can support and so building on our life on Christ will ensure that he will support the rest of our life our marriage our friendships our careers all those things are based on what we put our foundation on and hopefully it's Jesus Christ.

Third,

1. Be strengthened in the faith you were taught. Look at the second half of verse seven, it says then your faith will grow strong in the truth you were taught. I did not grow up in a Christian home, but as a child in public school we would recite the Lord’s Prayer. Everyday… and before long the words I said by route were engrained so that  when I was in the middle of a difficult time in life — that prayer, God’s Word would just come out making my faith stronger.

2. Be thankful. Overflowing in thankfulness. I love this one. If I want to see if I'm growing as a believer I want to see one of the tests that I can say is how grateful am I am i noticing the things that God is doing because if I’m spending time in God’s Word and I’m spending time with God, then I start to see all the things God is doing and I will have an attitude of gratefulness.

We have much to be grateful at Amberlea.  I pray you will join us this Sunday as we begin the celebrations!  We celebrate years of faithfulness and service in this community, but more importantly we celebrate that we are rooted in God, built up by God, strengthened through God and thankful to God!

Reap generously

Recently, I met an astounding person.  An individual who is kind, hopeful and exceedingly generous. It was humbling for me to see this person in action.

The Apostle Paul in 2 Corinthians 9:16 challenged the believers in Corinth with this statement:

Remember this “Whoever sows sparingly will also reap sparingly, and whoever sows generously will also reap generously.”

When we read this verse, our heads may turn immediately, and maybe instinctually, to our finances but it is so much more that that.  I was inspired as I watched my new friend give freely of their time, their talents and their heart to a cause that they cared so deeply about.  What impressed me was how they showed up, and how by showing up their corner of the world was changed.

Now when I think of a person who sows generously, I think of a person who is constantly going above and beyond the status quo. Somebody who is going above and beyond the call of duty.  This is not a person who is just going through life checking  boxes in their home, in their job or in their school, but this is a person who is looking for opportunities to exceed other people’s expectations.

But here is what I also find true, in the case of my new friend who so generously goes above and beyond for others, they find themselves in situations that are above and beyond where they thought they would be in life.

What would have taken them 5 years to achieve, only took them 2 and I believe that happened as a result of the mindset they carry as it pertains to generosity.

Paul makes it clear in the surrounding text that we don’t give to get.  If we give, we should do so willingly and joyfully —not begrudgingly.

And what we sow with the right heart, God will surely multiply what we produce!

“Whoever sows sparingly will also reap sparingly, and whoever sows generously will also reap generously.”

How might you sow generously today?  How can you go above and beyond for someone else?

With your attention?

With your words?

With your actions?

With your money?

Look for an opportunity to go above and beyond for someone else for as you sow generously, you will also reap generously!