Morning & Evening Devotional Reading–

June 23– Evening

by C. H. Spurgeon, revised and edited by W. C. Neff

“Wait eagerly for adoption as sons.” 

—Romans 8:23

Even now, in this world, saints are God’s children, but other men cannot discover them to be so except by certain moral characteristics. Our adoption has not yet been openly declared to all. In the first century, a Roman man might adopt a child and keep it private for a long time. But there was a second adoption in public when the child was brought before the convened authorities. That’s when the child’s former garments were removed and the adopting father gave him clothing suitable to the child’s new standing as a son.

Elsewhere the Scripture says, “Dear ones, now we are the sons of God, but we don’t yet appear as we will be.” We do not yet wear the royal clothing of heaven. We are still wearing the flesh and blood that we wore as the sons of Adam. But we know that “when [Jesus] will appear,” who is the “first-born among many brothers,” we will be like him, “for we will see him as he is.”

Think of it!  What if you were a child taken from the lowest ranks of society and adopted by a Roman senator. Wouldn’t you say, “O, how I long for the day when I will be publicly adopted! Then I will put off these working-class garments and be robed according to my official rank”? The child is happy in his present adoption, but, for that very reason, he yearns for the fullness of what is promised to him.

So it is with us today. We are waiting until we will put on our proper garments and will be declared to all that we are the sons of God! We are children now but have not yet worn our crowns. We are young brides, and the marriage day is yet to come; we live in the love of our fiancée now, but we long for the bridal morning. Let us be happy now, but let us groan for even more of Him. [M&E]