Think of a time when you felt alone—a time when things were so bad that you felt like you had no one to turn to for help or a time when it felt like even God wasn’t there with you. What were you thinking, how did you feel? Were you angry? Fearful? Devastated? Condemned?
Everyone has these moments in their lives when the world feels like it’s ending no matter how hard you try to stop it from happening. In these moments we’re afraid. Afraid that it’s all our fault and that we’re never going to recover from our failure. During these times we’re being attacked by the spirit of fear, who lies to us and makes us feel as if we’ll never be good enough. But even in these moments, God has provided us a way to fight back against the spirit of fear.
This morning our devotional was over Romans: 15-17:
“So you have not received a spirit that makes you fearful slaves. Instead, you received God’s Spirit when He adopted you as His own children. Now we call Him, ‘Abba, Father.’ For His Spirit joins with our spirit to affirm that we are God’s children. And since we are His children, we are His heirs.”
These verses make it so clear that as children of God we don’t have to be afraid ever again. The moment we accepted Christ into our hearts, God gave us the power of the Holy Spirit, who gives us the strength to fight back against the spirit of fear.
Verse 16 says, “For His Spirit joins with our spirit to affirm that we are God’s children.” We are new people with the authority of God dwelling in us through the Holy Spirit. The presence of God is with us wherever we go, so we never have to experience fear the same way again.
There will still be days when we give into the spirit of fear (we aren’t perfect!), but with God’s Spirit living inside us we don’t have to deal with fear alone.
God adopted us, we are His heirs. We will never have to feel alone and afraid again because we can call Him, “Abba, Father.” God will meet all our needs and He will provide for us in ways our earthly family never could. These verses are a powerful reminder that God sees the threat of fear in our lives and has provided the Holy Spirit to fight fear always. But these verses also paint a sweet picture of God as our adoptive Father—a parent who will protect and provide for us.
Romans 8:15-17 reminds us as Christians that we are protected against the spirit of fear by God’s Holy Spirit—He is an eternal, all-powerful parent ready to provide for our every need. These verses also remind us as an agency that all the work we do to place kids and help build new forever families is simply an extension of God’s adoption of us as His children.
The children that we care for and place with foster and adoptive families are an earthly representation of the heavenly and enteral adoption that God has already orchestrated for those who accept Him into their hearts. 4KIDS didn’t come up with the concept of adoption and forever families: God did. While we are on earth, we want to love the children in foster care the way God first loved us by providing for their every need and doing everything possible to let them know they are not alone and they don’t have to be afraid anymore.