14 All who are led by God’s Spirit are God’s sons and daughters. 15 You didn’t receive a spirit of slavery to lead you back again into fear, but you received a Spirit that shows you are adopted as his children. With this Spirit, we cry, “Abba, Father.” 16 The same Spirit agrees with our spirit, that we are God’s children. 17 But if we are children, we are also heirs. We are God’s heirs and fellow heirs with Christ, if we really suffer with him so that we can also be glorified with him.
Reflection
Imagine getting an inheritance beyond your wildest dreams! But this inheritance isn’t great wealth, but it is the greatest gift you can ever be given. It is the gift of the grace of God, salvation through faith in Christ, made perfect in love by the Spirit. This is a life of discipleship, following Jesus, and living life in the Spirit.
What does it mean to live our life in the Spirit? Paul outlines for us what living our life in the Spirit looks like on a daily basis. Life in the Spirit is how God wants us to live. Life in the Spirit is full of promises and joy. We are are led by God’s Spirit as God’s beloved children. We are forgiven, set free from the slavery of fear, sin and death. We have received God’s Spirit and
have been adopted as heirs to the Kin-dom through all that Christ has done for us. We are able to cry out to God as our loving parent, who loves and hears us, and is with us. This agreement of our spirit with the Holy Spirit is proof that we are God’s children. This assurance that we are the children of God is the gift of God bringing us peace, joy and hope in our eternal future with God in glory.
The Holy Spirit guides us and changes us to be perfected in Christian love. However, our life in the Spirit is a life of ongoing transformation, where we will experience suffering as we follow Jesus, for a life in the Spirit, of following the example of Jesus, will put us on a collision course with the world in which we live. And just as we will share in Christ’s suffering, so too, says Paul, we will share in the future glory with Jesus in the Kin-dom.
by Jeneene Reduker
For Pondering and Prayer
Paul is describing the amazing grace and boundless love that God has for God’s children. A future inheritance of which we are co-heirs with Christ! A relationship with God where we can approach God with the same affection as a child receives from a loving parent. A life of free-dom from fear to a life lived loving God and loving all those whom God loves. This is our legacy, living a life in the Spirit that transforms us and the world.
Are you living a life free of fear and living a life in the Spirit? Have you felt that assurance that you are a redeemed child of God?
Prayer: Abba, thank you for your love for us and your gift to us of a life in the Spirit frees us from fear. Help us to remember we can rely on your assurance that we are redeemed children of God. Amen.
