Devotionals

I Belong to God

by Susan Barnes 
12/03/21
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“If we live, it’s to honor the Lord. And if we die, it’s to honor the Lord. So whether we live or die, we belong to the Lord.” Romans 14:8

God made us with the need to belong and he meets this need when we commit ourselves to him. It’s a great comfort to know that we belong to God. We are people of worth and value because we are his, but we have to believe it to experience it.

When we belong to God, we don’t belong to anyone or anything else in the sense of being enslaved to it. We aren’t a slave to sin or to those things which seek to hold us captive, like addictions, controlling partners, overwhelming temptations. When we belong to God, he frees us from our past and gives us the power to stop doing harmful things.

Paul writes, “Now you are no longer a slave but God’s own child” (Galatians 4:7).

Slavery was abolished in America on 18th December 1865. How many slaves were there the following day?

There should have been none, but many continued to live like slaves because they weren’t told they were free. Even those who knew they were free continued to live as slaves because it was all they had ever known. Some thought they might be free but told themselves, “I’m still living like a slave, doing the same things that I’ve always done. My experience tells me I must be a slave.”

If we want to experience the freedom that God offers, we have to believe God’s Word that tells us we belong to him and we aren’t slaves to anything else.