¹⁵ 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, ‘Abba, Father.’

In Roman times there was a system that allowed a man to adopt an heir into his family to take on the family estate after his death. It had come about because the Romans had developed a water system that used pipes made out of lead. Lead is a metal that’s easy to work with so pipes are simple to make but can also cause infertility. So, heirs were often hard to come by. The head of the household would look for a protégé, someone he could trust and train to take over the management of his wealth at an appropriate moment. Heirs could come from any background; Roman, foreigner, free or slave it didn’t matter as long as they had the right potential. An adopted son would be lifted out of an uncertain life and placed in a much more positive and healthy future.

Paul draws the same analogy in this verse for our adoption into the Kingdom of God as His adopted sons and daughters. The only qualification we need is to have accepted Jesus as our Lord and Saviour and to have been filled with His Holy Spirit. The call upon us then is to leave our old lives and our old ways of thinking behind to walk with the Holy Spirit in all things. When we do that we can do it in the sure and certain knowledge that God, our Father in Heaven, has adopted us as His chosen sons and daughters. In that knowledge we can be assured that we have nothing left to fear because the God of Creation is all powerful and all loving. Our adoption takes us beyond the status of a servant, an employee or even an associate and elevates us to the position of heir to the Kingdom in which we all share.

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Application:

Consider your birth, your upbringing and the track your life has been on. Some of us will have enjoyed happiness and peace in all of that, some will have found some or all of it difficult. Under God’s plan we are all given the privilege of becoming sons and daughters with an equal footing where history doesn’t matter anymore. Remind yourself daily that your past is behind you and your future is in Christ Jesus who saved you.

Prayer:

Abba Father, help me to understand that my adoption into your family as your son/daughter is full and complete. Fill me again with Your Holy Spirit and bless me to walk with You, free from fear, all the days of my life. Amen.