Being Sons and Daughters of the Heavenly Father

“Because you are his sons, God sent out the Spirit of his Son into our hearts, the Spirit who calls out, ‘Abba, Father’.”

― Galatians 4:6

CHRISTIANITY is such a different religion to all others, given the personal relationship we have with the Father, due the obedience of the Son, and the sending out of his Spirit into our hearts. Christianity is the fascination: linked are the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit in the passing to us of humanity the grace of redemption – the forgiveness of sins, eternally.

Our Father in heaven,

Hallowed be Your name,

For the Holy Spirit is our leaven,

Now that Jesus Christ came.

Now, because we are his sons (and daughters), and we have the Spirit in our hearts, we also know the Father as a Daddy (Abba, Father).

How the Spirit Connects Us Intimately with the Father

When we begin to allow ourselves to comprehend the intimacy of the Spirit of the Son with the Father – as the Holy Trinity is encapsulated in thought – we begin to imagine that we have the selfsame intimacy, because of Jesus.

Ah, we may not have it – this experience of intimacy – we probably don’t.

The point is it’s not only God’s will that we relate with the Father through the Spirit, it’s God’s enabling, because we are sons (and daughters).

If we have taken Jesus up on the offer of salvation – by the confession of our hearts in repenting the old life – knowing we are being renewed day by day, meaning we are not yet perfect – we are sons and daughters of God. We have intimacy with the Father as if God the Father were the most loving earthly father possible – he is that, and infinitely more.

Intimacy with the Father & the Spirit’s Leading to Obedience

As we possess the Spirit, or better put, the Spirit possesses us, we are given over into the sort of intimacy with God we might have with the lovingest of fathers. We are engorged with love and safety. Our fear of God is utterly a respectful fear – of sons and daughters who seek to please their father for all the right reasons.

Such an intimacy is always aided by drawing close to the Father and by maintaining the closeness of our relationship. That means God is the hinge of our worship; all other ‘interests of life’ are secondary (at best) and may not even enter the same frame.

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No other faith system offers such intimacy with God as the Christian’s intimacy with the Father. With the Spirit in us, we too cry, “Abba, Father!” to the glory of God.

© 2014 S. J. Wickham.