Romans 8

I just spent an afternoon at the Scottish Highland Games in Pleasanton, California. If sports are your interest, you can watch kilted athletes of Scottish descent compete in the stone put, hammer throw, and caber toss. If you are a patron of the arts, you can watch the drum and piper corps or the dancing troupes. If you are an animal lover, there are the sheepdog trials and the falconer demonstrations to attend.

I saw a bit of everything but spent most of my time learning about my ancestors, who were actually lowlanders from the districts of Aberdeenshire, Angus, and Fife. What impressed me most was the sense of family. If you share a last name that falls under a Scottish clan, members consider you family, encourage you to wear the family tartan, and invite you to family get-togethers. They want to know everything about you and vice versa.

It is good to belong to a family.

The apostle tells us we have "received the Spirit of adoption" and have become "children of God" and "heirs with Christ." Did you know that when you choose to believe in Christ, you enter his family as a beloved child, entitled to all the rights of the firstborn son, the most important right being unbroken contact between you and your God? Within us is a Spirit that "helps [us] in [our] weakness...to be conformed to the image of [the] Son." 

We live in a world filled with broken families...but not this family.

Nothing...not "death nor life, nor angels nor rulers, nor things present nor things to come, nor powers, nor height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord." Your family privileges include victory over the hardships that exist in this broken world. We are "more than conquerors through him who loved us."

Wear your tartan.

You're family now.