My weakness isn't as bad as your weakness

We all have weaknesses in our lives.  Usually these weaknesses run in families, if you look at your great-grandpa, you might see that he was a very proud man too, or maybe your aunt has that same tendency to lie that you've seen in yourself or your children, or maybe a cousin has that same weakness for spending too much money that you have.  When we are surrounded by people in our family with the same weakness or tendencies that we have we can start to think that it's not that bad.  We make excuses like, it's just the way we are.  You know, those Joneses, they are always trying to deal underhandedly, or maybe those Smiths, they always look down on the Jacksons.  We get comfortable with our sin, to where we don't even hardly notice it.  But we definitely notice other people's!

Yes, these are my ancestors...

that's where I get my grumpiness from!

Needless to say, this one isn't framed and up in our house!

 

Enter adoption.  In our family we have 6 different biological families represented, all with their own set of weaknesses.  Some of those weaknesses are things we have never felt tempted to do ourselves, so when we see our child doing it, it's very easy to think, "oh my goodness!  I can't believe my child is ___enter sin here____!"  That is why we end up hearing excuses for adopting like, "I don't want to bring bad blood into our family."  Like one person's blood is actually better than another's?  We are all sinners before God, none of us are righteous.  The sin of pride is not "better" than the sin of stealing- it is all filth, and it all destroys relationships between ourselves and others, but most importantly, between us and God.  Thankfully we have Jesus, who has made a way for us to have a restored relationship with God, through his death on the cross!

He himself bore our sins in his body on the tree,

so that we might die to sins and live for righteousness;

by his wounds you have been healed.

1 Peter 2:24