This ad catches my eye because a friend has asked me to speak to a small high school’s assembly tomorrow. Her son — my godson — is a student there and it’s his birthday. He is also adopted.

Birthday = “Day you entered the world.” Under God’s plan, it also means “Day you became part of a family.”

We all enter the world. But it’s a fallen world, so not every person is welcomed into his birth family. Thus:

Adoption: “Second chance to become part of a family.”

Families are important, because we derive so much from them: A name, an identity, opportunities, discipline, and an inheritance.

God has much to say about birthdays and adoption.

He tells us we are actually born dead (spiritually dead, that is). So we need to be born again (have a new birthday, born into the world of God’s Kingdom). That is possible only through Jesus Christ, who produces spiritual life where there was none, producing a new self. Doing so, the Father brings us into His everlasting family by adoption.

In that adoption, we receive the mark of God’s name, His righteous identity, His boundless opportunities (no longer bound by a sin nature), His precious discipline, and His everlasting inheritance.

“Today’s my birthday.”

Some people are still looking for a spiritual sponsor. They are lost, without a provider. They desperately need a second birthday, one that includes eternal adoption.

God actually makes it possible. Because Jesus chose to have a physical birthday, too.