Today's Devotional

October 31, 2003

Subject:  Hallow what?  

Romans 8:15 - "For ye have not received the spirit of bondage again to fear; but ye have received the Spirit of adoption, whereby we cry, Abba, Father."

So it's that day of the year again.  Everyone dresses up in costumes and parades around neighborhood streets for candy and treats.  Without going into the detail about the history of this day, which I confess I know little about, isn't it strange that we argue about things like prayer in the schools and the right to life and we ensure that those things are kept out of the public domain so as not to offend anyone?  However, I'm quite sure that in any and almost every public elementary school across this country today, the kids are being exposed to Halloween and everything associated with it.  They probably have bulletin boards posted with eerie and frightening caricatures and things like that.  

Our society actively promotes this fear element as though it were harmless and something to take as fun and then we're amazed at the suicide rate and the epidemic of stress and anxiety in our culture.  If we are to have the right fear, it is to be the fear of God and Him only.

The verse above says that fear puts us in bondage.  We are paralyzed and held back by those things that frighten us and scare us.  That fear can be from circumstances or people.  However, we have a Father who can scare away the Boogey Man and anything else that haunts us in this life.  So while I don't make a big deal out of Halloween personally, I do make a big deal out of what it means to be Hallowed, which is Holy.  Their is no fear in holiness and through our adoption by the Father, we have been freed from it.  So I'm not scared of Freddy Krueger, Jason Vorhees or Michael Myers.  I have the fear of the Lord.

Not Halloween, but Hallowed be thy Name!

Carlen