Charles Spurgeon, On Adoption

“A man, when he adopts a child sometimes is moved thereto by its extraordinary beauty, or at other times by its intelligent manners and winning disposition. But, beloved, when God passed by the field in which we were lying, he saw no tears in our eyes till he put them there himself; he saw no beauty in us that could induce him to adopt us – on the contrary we were everything that was repulsive; and if he had said, when he passed by, ‘Thou are cursed, be lost forever,’ it would have been nothing but what we might have expected from a God who had been so long provoked, and whose majesty had been so terribly insulted. But no; he found a rebellious child, a filthy, frightful, ugly child; he too it to his bosom, and said, ‘Sinful though thou art comely in my eyes through my son Jesus; unworthy though thou art yet I cover three with this robe, and in thy brother’s garments I accept thee’; and taking us, all unholy and unclean just as we were, he took us to be his – his children, his forever.” (from a sermon titled “Adoption”)