Hi, I’m Joni Eareckson Tada and welcome to "Joni and Friends".
Recently during a flight to Kansas City, a woman from an adoption agency sat across the aisle from me on the airplane. And I watched because in her arms she held two beautiful Korean babies. My heart melted. They both looked like my husband; like little ‘Ken Tadas’ with their dark skin and hair, almond eyes and full cheeks. I couldn't take my eyes off those babies. I wondered about the circumstances surrounding their adoption. What was it like for them in Korea – in an orphanage? I knew one thing, though: Those two infants had no idea of the life they were heading into. Within seconds of that plane landing, their lives would be turned upside down. They would have new names, new citizenship, a new culture, and new identities. They would have a new father and new mother – in fact, a whole new family. Old things would pass away. From then on out, all things would be new. Those babies hadn't a clue as to what they were leaving behind, and more importantly, what was ahead.
It gave me a lot to think about on that long flight to Kansas City. It made me think of 2 Corinthians chapter 5 where it says, “Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has gone, the new has come! All this is from God, who reconciled us to himself through Christ.” You see, when we become Christians we can't begin to fathom the new world we're stepping into. In Christ, we have new identities, a new family, a new citizenship and – at least in the Lamb's book of life – we have new names. Goodness, we're even adopted. Like it says in Hosea chapter 1, “It will happen that in the very place where it was said to them, ‘You are not my people,’ they will be then called ‘sons of the living God.’” In a way, I wish those Korean children could have understood. I wish they could have enjoyed all that it meant to start a new life. But for them it will be an unfolding adventure, just as it is for us as children of God; we, too, will constantly be exploring, enjoying, and discovering as any child would.
It’s a pretty dramatic, life altering thing to be adopted – whether physical adoption, or the sort of spiritual adoption that the book of Hosea talks about. And it’s going to be happening this week in the Dominican Republic as we deliver wheelchairs and Bibles and give the Gospel to some of the world’s neediest, desperate people. So pray with me that they, too, will be adopted into the family of God. Pray that they, also, will have their names written in the Lamb’s Book of Life. Pray they’ll gain a new citizenship in heaven and find new identities in Jesus Christ. And if you’d like to see exactly what that looks like on a “Wheels for the World” trip, please, after we’re finished here, visit my radio page at joniandfriends.org and watch it happen in the life of a disabled Romanian gypsy to whom we gave a wheelchair. Talk about a life transformation and old things becoming new! Just see it for yourself at joniandfriends.org. And in closing, I’d like to ask you, have old things become new for you? Are you discovering your identity in Christ? Enjoying your citizenship in heaven? Are you delighting in the unfolding adventure of discovering more about Jesus every day? Friend, never take for granted what God removed you from and what has He replaced it with. May you see, with childlike wonder, the splendor of your life with Christ. You are adopted into the family of God and life should be – it can be – one long string of incredible discoveries.
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