Countless times I’ve heard someone walking to the mailbox quip, “Who knows? Maybe there’ll be a check from a long, lost uncle.” It’s not an entirely groundless cliché. One example is a windfall received by a woman named Lillian Malrup in 1930. Her uncle George made a fortune in the Alaskan gold rush and when he died, she unexpectedly inherited $60,000 (approximately $1.1 million today). Five years later Uncle George’s business partner, whom she had never met and only occasionally heard about in letters, passed away. He left her $700,000 (approximately $13.4 million today)! Even by movie standards that seems too crazy to be true.
There have been numerous books that document how someone “clawed their way to the top,” but there is something particularly captivating when a person gets it without having personally earned it. Rich people getting richer isn’t especially interesting, and rags to riches stories are definitely intriguing, but unanticipated, radical wealth gained overnight sparks a whole different level of fascination. (There is, after all, a multi-billion-dollar lottery industry built on it.)
Are you the person that grumbles, “Nothing like that would ever happen to me”? In no way do I mean to plant seeds of discontent, but the Bible promises Christians an inheritance that far exceeds the one Ms. Malrup received. Inheritances are obtained by virtue of being a member of the benefactor’s family. It’s the family that’s gathered around the conference table at the attorney’s office to find out how the estate is to be distributed. That’s equally true of the Sovereign Benefactor, and here’s a bit of incredible news. By way of adoption, you are in the family and have a seat at the table.
In love He predestined us for adoption to Himself as sons through Jesus Christ, according to the purpose of His will, to the praise of His glorious grace, with which He has blessed us in the Beloved. (Eph. 1:4–6)
Through Christ you have been added to God’s family. As far as your identity, you have as much of a right to be in the room as anyone else saved by grace. You have a seat alongside Moses, David, Daniel and Paul. You have been given the same assurances as Abraham, Joseph, Elijah and Peter.
In Him we have obtained an inheritance, having been predestined according to the purpose of Him who works all things according to the counsel of His will, so that we who were the first to hope in Christ might be to the praise of His glory. In Him you also, when you heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation, and believed in Him, were sealed with the promised Holy Spirit, who is the guarantee of our inheritance until we acquire possession of it, to the praise of His glory. (Eph. 1:11–14)
If you have believed the gospel of salvation, then you can never again say, “Nothing like that would ever happen to me.” It already has! The ink is dry and the promised inheritance is irrevocable. There are no takebacks! Better than a scroll with the seal of a king’s ring or a key to a bank’s lockbox is the seal of the Holy Spirit. He is the personal “guarantee of our inheritance.”
According to Galatians 4:4-6, the reason that the Father sent the Son and subjected Him to being born under the law, was to make it possible for Him to adopt you. Jesus redeemed you so that He could welcome you into the family. After that is verse seven which reads, “So you are no longer a slave, but a son, and if a son, then an heir through God.”
Did you catch the transition? You went from slave to child. If you are a legitimate child, then you are an heir. God changed your name and gave you a seat at the table. All that is left is to believe the promise and to patiently wait for it. Instead of the selfish motto, “I’ve got to get mine,” you can live confidently in Christ by the selfless one, “I’m going to get His.”
And we desire each one of you to show the same earnestness to have the full assurance of hope until the end, so that you may not be sluggish, but imitators of those who through faith and patience inherit the promises. (Heb. 6:11–12)