“But when the set time had fully come, God sent his Son, born of a woman, born under the law, to redeem those under the law, that we might receive adoption to sonship. Because you are his sons, God sent the Spirit of his Son into our hearts, the Spirit who calls out, “Abba, Father.” So you are no longer a slave, but God’s child; and since you are his child, God has made you also an heir.”
Galatians 4:4-7 NIV
So far the season has failed to represent accurately what Christ's first coming was really about. Far from festivities, over-indulgence, and family, Christ's first coming was all about establishing a relationship with mankind. We are so far from that very first angelic announcement that it is lost in the holiday shuffle.
He came to the lowest place on the globe to demonstrate no one was too far below him to be LIFTED up by him. He came to those oppressed and lacking freedom to show that he could break EVERY bondage. He walked among the poor to show that God was willing to SHARE his riches. He came under Rome's AUTHORITY so that he might use the Roman roads to share the gospel. He gave his Son to a woman born under the Torah, to show that his life would FULFILL the law, every jot and tittle.
Jesus came that we might receive the spirit of adoption into our hearts. That Spirit only cries out "Abba". Abba is the name of intimacy with the Father. He comes to draw us into the Life giving relationship with God. Have you entered into that relationship with Christ? Have you opened the doorway of your heart to receive the adoptive love of Jesus? This doesn't happen by church attendance, nor by church membership; it doesn't happen by familial teaching or by connections to others who walk with Christ. It happens in prayer. You must pray to receive that which God has procured for you in the coming and dying and resurrecting of the Son that he sent.
The results of such an adoptive relationship, established by our Father in Heaven, are spelled out by Paul. He came to make us his children; He came to set us free from slavery to sin; He came to make us heirs of God. What great fortune that God would set us in his forever family- loved, free, and heirs with Christ!
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