The Holy Spirit within us has made us children of God, He does not make us slaves to fear. In our desire to do right and to avoid doing wrong we can so easily become slaves to fear, the fear of failure, the fear of punishment (1 John 4:18). I guess most (probably all) of us have times when we fear about having made a wrong decision, we think God will punish us if we have made a wrong decision. If you are going through a time like this just consider your thoughts for a while. Now God may discipline us, but discipline and punishment are completely different. Punishment is completely judicial, paying the price for our sin and failings. Discipline is done with the loving hand of the Father leading us on to become better sons and daughters, teaching and training us.
The Spirit brought about your adoption as sons. The concept of adoption is probably borrowed from the Roman or Greek culture. An adopted son had the same rights as a natural born son, and this included inheritance rights.
And the Spirit enables us to cry “Abba, Father”. Now Abba is the Aramaic term used by a child of its father but we need to be careful in over-sentimentalizing it and substituting the word “daddy”. Yes there is a closeness and an affection, but there is also the discipline and leadership of a father as well, the authority of the Father. Jesus used this phrase in Gethsemane when He was about to go to the cross and was going through anguish before it. Abba Father gives us the strength to do what we think is impossible to do, gives us the strength to endure what we don’t think we are able to endure, to become Christlike people that we never thought possible. That is the truth of what Abba Father means, it is a million times greater than just “daddy”. My own father died while I was a baby, but I am so glad that I have Abba Father and all that He desires for my life. Let us rejoice in the fullness of what Abba Father means.
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