BROADCASTS.com

The Spirit you received does not make you slaves, so that you live in fear again; rather, the Spirit you received brought about your adoption to sonship. And by him we cry, \u201cAbba, Father.\u201d (Romans 8:15)

\xa0

Hope propels us out into the world.\xa0 And, as we ask the thorny questions of how to live in light of hope, we look to our Father and we remember that we are his children.\xa0

Our hope is in God, through Jesus Christ, who together give us the Spirit.\xa0 And the Spirit joins us to our new identity.\xa0 The Spirit is the adoption agent who accomplishes this work of joining us into the family of God.\xa0 Never has the Spirit failed at this work.\xa0 The Spirit connects us to Jesus the moment we believe, making us a part of the body of Christ and a part of the family of God.\xa0

Once part of the family, our name changes.\xa0 Now we\u2019re called Christian.\xa0 Now we\u2019re called the children of God. \xa0And that changes who we are.\xa0 As children of God, we are seen, we are known, we are loved.\xa0 We know who we are now because we know whose we are.\xa0 We carry that family name \u201cChristian\u201d that goes back through the generations, thousands of years.\xa0 It\u2019s a name and an identity far more enduring than our brief blip of a lifespan or anything that we can do within it.\xa0 Adoption into the family of God makes us part of something much larger than ourselves, and yet never degrades us into an impersonal number or cog in the wheel.\xa0 We don\u2019t become slaves, we become dearly loved children.

This is who we are now.\xa0 And who we are, tells us how to live.\xa0 Tells us something of our purpose.\xa0 Reminds us of the family business we\u2019ve been adopted into of ruling and stewarding the world, bringing love, justice, mercy, grace, and peace all in the name of Christ, our brother.\xa0

We can tend to get this backwards, thinking we need to slave away in order to earn our way into the Father\u2019s good graces.\xa0 But friends, that\u2019s simply not the case.\xa0 We\u2019re already there.\xa0 We\u2019re already dearly loved children of the Father, graced by the saving power of Christ, adopted into God\u2019s family through the Spirit.\xa0 There\u2019s nothing we need to do to earn it or prove our worthiness to keep it.\xa0 All that\u2019s needful has been given.\xa0

And so, when things get hard and we\u2019re no longer able to do much of anything, that\u2019s ok too.\xa0 It was never about our doing, and so there\u2019s nothing to fear.\xa0 The same Father who gave us home and shelter at the first, who receives us time and time again when we cry out to him through life\u2019s middle, still has a place of belonging for us at the last.\xa0 Because we are his children.

\xa0