“How great is the love the Father has 
lavished 
on us that we should be called children of God.” 
I John 3:1 

Could there be a love any greater than God’s love for us? No. Impossible. Nothing and no one can come close.  

God’s love is so great that He adopted us into His family. He made us His own children.  

I have many friends (and most likely you do, as well) who have adopted children. Adoption is a blessing. It honors God when children without a family receive a family.

It’s also costly; adoption comes at a high price.  

Financial costs may include multiple trips to foreign countries, legal expenses, adoptions fees. 

Emotional costs can be delayed schedules, changed decisions, and days and months of waiting for a phone call. 

Then there are the lifestyle costs; there are always lifestyle changes when a little one is welcomed into the family, but those adjustments are even more pronounced when the child comes via adoption. Previous experiences or abuses, unaddressed health challenges, neglect, adoption out of birth order, attachment disorder, and a myriad of other issues may multiply the adjustment for everyone in the family. The dynamics of all the relationships are shifted.  

Whether by birth or by adoption — but perhaps especially by adoption — there is a considerable price to be paid for expanding a family.   

When God adopted us into His family, it required the highest price of all: the death of His own son. Our adoption was paid for with the blood of Jesus Christ. You may have been born to your earthly parents or adopted by them, but every one of us becomes God’s child by adoption … and His motivation for adding you to His family is love. He lavished His love upon us by making the ultimate sacrifice, paying the highest of all prices.

He considers you that valuable.

He believes you are worth it.  

The word lavish is fun to say. I like the way I can click my tongue forward when I say it. And I like even more how it feels, knowing I have received it! Who wouldn’t want to be lavished with love? 

“Lavished love” may prompt thoughts of roses and candy from a spouse, a new car for a 16-year-old, or a Disney World vacation for a 5-year-old. But the ultimate lavishing of love requires the highest sacrifice of all. That’s the price Jesus paid.  

Our family fulfilled one of my husband’s life-long dreams this summer: we visited Normandy, France, the site of the D-Day invasion that liberated France from Nazi Germany. It was overwhelming to stand at the American Cemetery there — gazing across a sea of more than 9400 white crosses, each one representing a soldier whose life was snuffed out early because he was committed to something bigger than himself. Those men gave their own lives so others could go on living theirs. The Americans who sailed from England to France on June 6, 1944, changed the course of history. They were heroes because they showed up. They didn’t know if they would die that day, but they knew it was a very real possibility.

Their resolve to do whatever was required to defeat the monster created by Adolf Hitler — their incredible bravery and sacrifice — is the reason we enjoy freedom today.  

This was an emotional experience for me. I didn’t expect it to be. But as I looked at those crosses (and learned more of the lives each marker represented), I was overwhelmed with both sadness for them and gratefulness for myself, my family, my country, the people of France, and our world.

The lost lives of men I never knew have lavished freedom on me and my family. On all of us.

But even their supreme sacrifice that brought me physical freedom cannot compare to the eternal, spiritual freedom provided to me by Jesus on Calvary’s Cross. His incomparable valor in action against our greatest enemy brought ultimate freedom: nothing less than freedom from death and eternal consequences for my sin.

This is lavished love — for which I am profoundly grateful, but also wholly undeserving.

Those 9400 crosses brought tears to my eyes and an ache to my heart. I thought of lives cut short … devastated sweethearts, wives, and mothers … children that would never be born … all because lives were taken. Lives were given.  

But my aching and tears for them, though great, should pale in comparison to my aching tears for the pain — and gratitude for the sacrifice — of my Lord Jesus. His lavished love needs to be pondered, treasured, and appreciated.

The realization of what He did should overwhelm us with gratitude, loosening the ties of addiction to self and tethering us with cords of thankfulness to Him. Becoming His child is the undoing of “me-ness,” as I choose to daily declare, “Thy will be done.” 

Thank you, Jesus. You gave your life for me. I gratefully give my life to You.   

Are you feeling lavished by His love today, dear friend? Are you His? Do you know you are His child? Have you thanked Him today for paying the high price of adoption to make you part of His family?  

When we know these things, what else can we do but declare the words from I John 3:1 to all who can hear:

“How great is the love the Father has lavished on us
that we should be called children of God.”

Watch for our NEW September installment of
the Write The Word series …
coming this Tuesday, August 27th!