Welcome to Daily Steps! 
A weekly devotional message with daily scripture readings, prayer prompts, and action steps to help you spend time with Jesus and strengthen your relationship with Him.

Romans 8:15-17 "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. In fact, together with Christ we are heirs of God’s glory. But if we are to share his glory, we must also share his suffering.” 

The Transformation of Adoption

What goes through your mind in the first few seconds after you realize that you’ve lost your keys or misplaced your smartphone? In the moment of losing something valuable, we often find ourselves on the verge of losing our minds trying to think of where we left it, retracing our steps, or calling around places we’ve been to inquire about the lost item (if you didn’t lose your phone, that is). Your mind may even be flooded with questions and doomsday scenarios, depending on what you’ve misplaced. Most of us also know that feeling of panic followed by frantic, sometimes irrational, searching. As you think about that feeling of losing something important, imagine magnifying the intensity of it a hundredfold… maybe even a thousandfold. At that scale, it would be an obsession that no human being could possibly manage, control, or contain. If any of us could remotely imagine that intensity, it would still give us only a glimpse of how much God longs for us to be close to Him, minus, of course, all of our human weaknesses of panic, irrationality, and disorder.

When you read Romans 8:15 with that type of longing in your mind, God’s pursuit of us to make us His sons or daughters takes on a whole new meaning. When you take this verse into consideration with so many stories from the Bible where God pursues us, you cannot help but be overwhelmed by the demonstration of His relentless and intense love. Many people know the story in Luke 15 of the prodigal son returning home and his father running out to meet him when he finally returned home. Just imagine God Himself running out to meet you! Also contained in that same chapter of Luke is the parable of the shepherd leaving the 99 other sheep in his flock to pursue the one that had wandered away.

If these examples are not enough, consider the story from John 9 where Jesus heals a man who was blind from birth. Tucked into this 41-verse story is one small phrase in verse 35 that proclaims volumes about our Savior’s passion for us: having found him. It wasn’t enough for Jesus to give the man the gift of sight, He dropped everything He was doing with the disciples and left the crowds who were constantly vying for His attention and went after the guy. Why? Because everyone the man had known before his healing now rejected him and ostracized him from the life he had always known. Jesus cared as much for this man’s emotional well-being as his physical situation. 

When we come to Jesus, we are transformed during the adoption process from slaves to royal heirs of an eternal kingdom. Our identity changes. Our likeness shifts. Our hearts come home. We experience complete acceptance. Our tomorrows will never be the same again. Like the prodigal son who finally found his true self when he fell into the arms of his father… or the blind man who found healing for his eyes and love for his fragile soul… becoming a son or daughter of the King is all-encompassing and all-consuming. The transformation begins the moment we surrender our hearts to Him and continues until we are 100 percent whole in eternity. And should we ever wander away or drift, Jesus will come after us. He will come and find us every time. Our Savior always comes for His own. 

Daily Bible Readings

Throughout the coming week, ponder the fact that the King of the universe personally pursues you at all costs. Ask Him to renew your sense of awe and wonder.

Monday - Read 1 Peter 2:9, Luke 22:24-30, Isaiah 62:3. As you meditate on these verses, search your heart for anything that doesn’t line up with the truth of who you are in Jesus. Satan tells us lies about our worth and whispers worries to our minds about our future. As any untruths come up, lay them out before the feet of Jesus and let the truth of His word saturate your soul. 

Tuesday - Read Luke 19:10. 2 Chronicles 16:9 declares, “The eyes of the Lord search the whole earth in order to strengthen those whose hearts are fully committed to him.” God sent Jesus to complete the task of searching for us and bring us back into fellowship with Him. Listen to the song “Reckless Love,” and then spend time praising God for coming after you. 

Wednesday - Read Psalm 16:6-8 and 1 Peter 1:3-5. God has a future waiting for us which would blow our minds if we could catch but a glimpse of it. Spend time quietly imagining what it will be like to walk side by side with Jesus one day. What would you tell Him if you could sit across from Him right now? Share your heart with Him and ask Him to assure you of His plans for you, both in the days ahead and the life to come. Let that assurance wash over you and still your restlessness. 

Thursday - Read 2 Timothy 1:6-8. Ask the Holy Spirit to come and flood your heart and mind right now. Rejoice as He trains you to replace your fears with the courage that belongs to you as a son or daughter of the King. 

Friday - Read Philippians 1:6.  We were written on His heart since before we were born and will be on His mind forever into eternity. The One who is highest above will always come after us, going into the deepest, slimiest pits or to the ends of the earth to complete His work in us. It’s a good reminder to us that we shouldn’t spend so much time thinking about ourselves, because God thinks about us all the time. In your prayer time, ask the Holy Spirit to focus your mind on God and His thoughts more than your own. 

TAKE YOUR NEXT STEP
Grow closer to Jesus each day and explore what it means to love your neighbor as yourself.

Want to Go Even Further? 
If you are not already using our weekly study guide with your community group or family members, you're missing out on thought-provoking questions for discussion or individual study. 

STUDY GUIDE - EVERYDAY THEOLOGY - ROMANS 8:14-17

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