Welcome to today's encouragement from Our Daily Bread.

Today's reading titled Legally His was written by Amy Boucher Pie.

Liz cried for joy when she and her husband received the birth certificate and passport for their child,

making the adoption legally binding. Now, Melena would always be their daughter, forever part of their family.

As Liz pondered the legal process, she also thought of the true exchange that happens when we become part of Jesus' family.

No longer are we held down by our birthright of sin and brokenness.

Rather, she continued, we enter into the fullness of God's kingdom legally when we are adopted as his children.

In the Apostle Paul's Day, if a Roman family adopted a son, his legal status would change completely.

Any debts from his old life would be canceled, and he would gain all of the rights

and privileges of his new family. Paul wanted the Roman believers in Jesus to understand that

this new status applied to them, too. No longer were they bound to sin and condemnation,

but now they lived according to the Spirit.

And those the Spirit leads are adopted as God's children.

Their legal status changed when they became citizens of heaven.

If we have received the gift of salvation, we too are God's children, heirs of his kingdom and united with Christ. Our debts have been cancelled by the gift of Jesus' sacrifice.

We no longer need to live in fear or condemnation.

Today's Our Daily Bread devotional scripture reading is from Romans chapter 8,

verses 1 through 2, and 10 through 17. Therefore, there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus,

because through Christ Jesus, the law of the Spirit, who gives life, has set you free from the law

of sin and death. And now picking up at verse 10,

But if Christ is in you, then even though your body is subject to death because of sin,

the spirit gives life because of righteousness. And if the spirit of him who raised Jesus from

...