The thought that God adopts us can be confusing to some. Satan loves to mess with our minds so that we doubt God. This daily devotional looks at how we know God adopts us by the Holy Spirit within us.
Nuggets
- We can’t reply on our feelings.
- The best place for Satan to cast doubt is in our minds.
- To help us overcome our doubts and feelings of unworthiness, God has put the witness of His Holy Spirit within us.
- God is not trying to bolster His claim by repeating it.
God’s adoption of us can be confusing to some. I found a sermon by Winslow that we are going to review. Let’s see if there are any nuggets that we can add to our understanding.
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Let's Put It into Context
Adoption is the gift of acceptance into God’s family when Jesus redeems us and changed to be spiritually alive like God.
We didn’t do anything to earn this privilege. We admitted our sins, believed Jesus is our Savior and Redeemer, and confessed God is sovereign Lord. We accepted His gift of salvation He made through His grace.
Glossary
How Should We Feel When God Adopts Us?
“This means that it is not the children of the flesh who are the children of God, but the children of the promise are counted as offspring” (Rom. 9: 8 ESV)
God adopts us when we ABCD. That can be a really heady time. We are experiencing many emotions. We feel joy and happiness, probably mixed in with some wonder.
Winslow wrote, “Divine adoption demands other than the testimony either of our own feelings or the opinion of men.” Ooo, baby. I read that, and a couple of different things popped into my head.
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We can’t reply on our feelings. Winslow warned us. Scriptures tell us that over and over again.
- “The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately sick; who can understand it?” (Jer. 17: 9 ESV).
- “Whoever trusts in his own mind is a fool, but he who walks in wisdom will be delivered” (Prov. 28: 26 ESV).
- “For whenever our heart condemns us, God is greater than our heart, and he knows everything” (I Jn. 3: 20 ESV).
- “There is a way that seems right to a man, but its end is the way to death. Even in laughter the heart may ache, and the end of joy may be grief” (Prov. 14: 12-13 ESV).
When we try to rely on our own thoughts and experiences, we take our focus off of God. We don’t see how misleading our thoughts are.
We may think we know what is meant when something is said, but we have misinterpreted it. So, all of our emotions that stem from that wrong interpretation are not what we should be feeling.
We can also read that to mean that the foundation of our salvation has to be more than just feelings. We have to submit whole hog to God. Salvation has to change our character.
The second part of Winslow’s warning is we can’t always rely on the opinions of others. Oh, yes. There are some that we can. We are to listen to godly advice.
- “The way of a fool is right in his own eyes, but a wise man listens to advice” (Prov. 12: 15 ESV).
- “Listen to advice and accept instruction, that you may gain wisdom in the future” (Prov. 19: 20 ESV).
- “Where there is no guidance, a people falls, but in an abundance of counselors there is safety” (Prov. 11: 14 ESV).
We have to be very careful at the advice that we accept. Winslow wrote, “There exists a strong combination of evil tending to shake the Christian’s confidence in the belief of his sonship.”
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Oh, isn’t that the truth! Satan wants to do everything in his power to convince us that God’s Word is not true. He wants us to believe God does not love us, will not provide for us, and — most importantly — cannot save us.
Satan wants to plant doubt whenever he can. “‘If you are the Son of God,’ he said, ‘throw yourself down. For it is written: “He will command his angels concerning you, and they will lift you up in their hands, so that you will not strike your foot against a stone”’” (Mt. 4: 6 NIV). If God is going to try to plant doubts in Jesus’ mind, won’t he try that with us?
We have to make sure we are listening to advice from a fellow disciple. “See what kind of love the Father has given to us, that we should be called children of God; and so we are. The reason why the world does not know us is that it did not know him” (I Jn. 3: 1 ESV). If the world doesn’t know God, it doesn’t know His ways.
The best place for Satan to cast doubt is in our minds. He likes for us to keep going through a laundry list of past sins to increase our feelings of unworthiness. He wants those doubts to so fill our minds that there no room left for God’s love and grace.
Okay. I have to process what Winslow said next. He wrote, “And when to this are added the varied dispensations of his heavenly Father, often wearing a rough garb, it is no marvel that, staggered by a discipline so severe, the fact of God’s love should sometimes be a matter of painful doubt.”
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Elaine-speak. When our minds are so full of guilt over our sinfulness and unworthiness, the blessings God bestows on us are covered up. We have to add them to the trials that Satan tempts us with and the testing that God gives us to grow us.
That tempting and testing comes in “… a rough garb …” It is painful and not pretty at all.
Add to that, we do get disciplined. Yep, God will discipline us when we disobey His laws and commandments.
So, Winslow said that, “… it is no marvel that, staggered by a discipline so severe, the fact of God’s love should sometimes be a matter of painful doubt.” It is expected that we doubt God’s love.
I think we have to be careful how we read that. God’s love is constant. It is not going to change. “But each day the LORD pours his unfailing love upon me, and through each night I sing his songs, praying to God who gives me life” (Ps. 42: 8 NLT). There is no reason for us to doubt it.
However, the life of a disciple is hard. Between the temptings and the trials, we can start doubting.
What we have to do is use those doubts to grow closer to God. We have to not like what we see and work to hard to live the way God wants us to live.
God Uses the Holy Spirit within Us
“I still have many things to say to you, but you cannot bear them now. When the Spirit of truth comes, he will guide you into all the truth, for he will not speak on his own authority, but whatever he hears he will speak, and he will declare to you the things that are to come. He will glorify me, for he will take what is mine and declare it to you. All that the Father has is mine; therefore I said that he will take what is mine and declare it to you” (Jn. 16: 12-15 ESV)
To help us overcome our doubts and feelings of unworthiness, God has put the witness of His Holy Spirit within us. Winslow gave us evidence of why we cannot question the Spirit’s competence.
The Holy Spirit is described as the Spirit of Truth. “He is the Spirit of truth. The world is unable to receive him because it doesn’t see him or know him. But you do know him, because he remains with you and will be in you” (Jn. 14: 17 CSB).
We know that what the Spirit is telling us is correct because He gets His marching orders from God. “When the Spirit of truth comes, he will guide you into all the truth, for he will not speak on his own authority, but whatever he hears he will speak, and he will declare to you the things that are to come” (Jn. 16: 13 ESV).
Okay, I have to process again. Winslow wrote, “As to the truth thus witnessed, we are not to suppose that the testimony is intended to make the fact itself more sure; nor for the benefit of our fellow creatures, still less for the satisfaction of God Himself, but for the assurance and comfort of our own hearts.”
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In this culture, isn’t it the case that, the more times we hear something, the truer it gets? Case in point. It is believed that all mankind are children of God. Well, we are all His creation made in His image. Doesn’t that make it true?
Oprah has said all are children of God. Obama has said it.
So, it must be true. Right? Wrong.
- “But to all who did receive him, who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God” (Jn. 1: 12 ESV).
- “For in Christ Jesus you are all sons of God, through faith” (Gal. 3: 26 ESV).
- “This means that it is not the children of the flesh who are the children of God, but the children of the promise are counted as offspring” (Rom. 9: 8 ESV).
I think what Winslow is trying to say here is just saying something time and again doesn’t make it true. God is not trying to bolster His claim by repeating it. It isn’t even said to “… benefit our fellow creatures …” — to witness to them. God isn’t trying to boost Himself up, either.
It is for our assurance and comfort. Assurance is having security in our beliefs. We know God is Sovereign Lord. We know He is in control of everything.
That gives us comfort. We have comfort of salvation.
How does God communicate with us? Winslow told us God:
- Changes our nature to be more like His.
- Provides us with spiritual fruits (Gal. 5: 22-23).
- Creates within us the desire to be holy.
When we put two and two together, we know we are children of God.
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Making the Connections
We go through this life relying a lot on feelings. We feel God has abandoned us. We feel that God hasn’t forgiving us.
We would be wrong.
Our ways are so far below God’s ways. “For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, declares the Lord. For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts” (Isa. 55: 8-9 ESV).
God loves us and adopts us when we submit our lives to Him.
How Do We Apply This?
The ABCDs of Salvation
If you have not become a believer in Christ, please read through the
Plan of Salvation and prayerfully consider what God is asking you to do.
A – admit our sins
B – believe His Son Jesus is our Redeemer
C – confess God as Sovereign Lord
D – demonstrate that commitment by making any changes needed in our lives to
live the way in which God has called us
The Disciple’s Job Description
Searching for and Seeking God
Hearing His Word (Rom. 10: 17).
Reading His Word (Rev. 1: 3).
Praying to Him (Heb. 4: 16).
Studying His Word (Ac. 17: 11).
Meditating on His Word (Ps. 1: 1-2).
Memorizing His Word (Ps. 119: 11).
Father God. We bow humbly before You. We thank You for adopting us back into Your family. You do that through the Plan of Salvation that You designed. We are awed that Jesus would give His life so that we might be restored to You. Help us to grow in grace and knowledge. Amen.
What do you think?
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