Do you know your lineage? Do you know your family tree? Do you know your cultural heritage? Do you know your racial heritage? Does any of that matter to you? Should it matter to you? Do you think it matters to God?
Some of us will have answers to all the questions listed above. Some of us will have no idea. Some of us will have dabbled a bit in finding out the answers to those questions but are a long way from knowing it all.
Knowing who our ancestors, where they came from, what they did, and their history may be of importance to us and may not. Sometimes having that knowledge explains a lot about why we are where we are. In fact, many of us may find we have relatives who participated in some historically significant events.
On the one hand, knowing our family history may provide us some stability, encouragement, and pride. On the other hand, it may cause us embarrassment, shame, and humiliation. Yet, all of us have a family history that is wonderful.
Though our human family history may explain some things about us, our spiritual family history makes all of that moot. God isn’t concerned about our human family history. He has given us a spiritual family history that makes all the difference.
You see, when Paul tells the Roman Christians in Romans 11:11-25 they were grafted into God’s family. He is stating our human family tree is now irrelevant, other than satisfying our general curiosity. The main point is God has adopted us into His family, calling us His children.
As we are grafted in, we become children of Abraham. We become Abraham’s children by faith. We become God’s children by faith. This is God’s form of adoption. As such, we inherit a new ancestral heritage, a heritage of faith.
As we see in today’s passage, all nations have been blessed by Abraham and his descendants, namely Jesus Christ. We are part of that blessing and are to continue to bless the nations through our faith. We do that by being a blessing to the people we encounter.
I pray we all are grafted into the God’s family. I pray we recognize our spiritual heritage. I pray each of us extend our spiritual heritage by blessing others. Know your spiritual heritage. Continue God’s work. Be a blessing to others.
Galatians 3:7-9 Understand, then, that those who have faith are children of Abraham. Scripture foresaw that God would justify the Gentiles by faith, and announced the gospel in advance to Abraham: “All nations will be blessed through you.” So those who rely on faith are blessed along with Abraham, the man of faith.
Marty Pressey 