Devotion

Romans 8:15

For you did not receive a spirit of slavery so that you are afraid again, but you received the Spirit of adoption by whom[e] we call out, “Abba, Father!”

God wants us to know how radically we changed when He brought us to faith.  We were slaves but now we are free.  In fact, we have been adopted by Jehovah.  When we were slaves, we were not slaves to Him, but slaves to sin.  So we ended up fighting for death, and were enemies of God.  In our new walk, we have changed.

You remember the story of Joseph who was a slave in prison, and by God's intervention, he became the second most powerful person in the whole world, second only to pharaoh himself.  That change for Joseph was much easier for God to accomplish than what it took to make us children of God by adoption.  For that to happen, God had to sacrifice His Son, Jesus.  So on the cross Jesus suffered eternal death so that we would never taste that separation from God.  

Now we should no longer dwell in that slavery, but count on Him and always bring everything to our heavenly Father who wants us to call him Daddy. 

The lesson

Esther 2:5-9

5 In the citadel at Susa there was a Jew named Mordecai, who was the son of Jair, the son of Shimei, the son of Kish the Benjaminite. 6 Kish had been taken from Jerusalem by Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon with the other captives who were exiled with Jeconiah king of Judah.[a]

7 Mordecai had raised his cousin Hadassah (also called Esther) because she had no father or mother. She was shapely and good-looking. When her father and mother died, Mordecai adopted her as his daughter.

8 When the king’s order and edict had been proclaimed, and many young women had been gathered into the citadel of Susa under the supervision of Hegai, Esther was taken to the king’s palace, to Hegai, who was in charge of the harem. 9 She pleased Hegai and gained his favor. He quickly provided her with beauty treatments and food. He assigned a good position in the harem to her and to the seven female attendants picked out for her from the king’s palace.

Exodus 2:1-10

The Birth of Moses

2 Now a man from the house of Levi went and took a Levite woman as a wife. 2 The woman became pregnant and bore a son. When she saw that he was a special[a] child, she hid him for three months. 3 When she was no longer able to hide him, she got a papyrus basket for him and coated it with tar and pitch. She put the child into it and placed it in the reeds along the bank of the Nile. 4 His sister stood at a distance to see what would happen to him.

5 Pharaoh’s daughter came down to bathe in the Nile, and her attendants were walking along the bank of the Nile. Pharaoh’s daughter saw the basket among the reeds and sent her servant girl to get it. 6 She opened it and saw the child. It was a boy, and he was crying. She felt sorry for him and said, “This is one of the Hebrew boys.”

7 Then his sister said to Pharaoh’s daughter, “Should I go and call a wet nurse from the Hebrew women to nurse the child for you?”

8 Pharaoh’s daughter said to her, “Yes, go.”

So the young woman went and called the child’s mother to come. 9 Pharaoh’s daughter said to her, “Take this child and nurse him for me, and I will pay you for doing it.”

So the woman took the child and nursed him. 10 When the child grew up, she brought him to Pharaoh’s daughter, and he became her son. She named him Moses, with the explanation, “Because I drew him up out of the water.”[b]

Romans 8:14-17

The Spirit Assures Us We Are Children of God

14 Indeed, those who are led by the Spirit of God are sons of God. 15 For you did not receive a spirit of slavery so that you are afraid again, but you received the Spirit of adoption by whom[e] we call out, “Abba, Father!” 16 The Spirit himself joins our spirit in testifying that we are God’s children.

17 Now if we are children, we are also heirs—heirs of God and fellow heirs with Christ, since we suffer with him, so that we may also be glorified with him.

Notes.