Going deeper
Adoption
In plain words
God takes you into His family as His own child, with full rights and a real Father.
God does not just forgive you and leave you standing outside. He brings you into His family. The Bible calls this adoption. You become God's child, not a servant or a guest. You can call Him Father, you belong, and you share in everything His family receives. That is not a feeling you have to work up. It is your new status.
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Paul says the Spirit we received does not make us slaves to fear but makes us children who cry, Abba, Father (Romans 8:14-17). John writes, see what great love the Father has given us, that we should be called children of God (1 John 3:1). Some think everyone is automatically God's child in this sense. The Bible says all people are made by God, but adoption comes through faith in Christ.
This changes how you pray and how you handle failure. A child who messes up is still a child. You can come to God with small things and big ones, without performing. When you feel like an outsider, remember who signed the papers.
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The Greek huiothesia, placing as a son, was a legal term in the Greek and Roman world. An adopted son received the family name, the inheritance and full standing in the family. Paul uses it for Israel's calling (Romans 9:4) and for believers in Christ (Galatians 4:4-7). Ephesians 1:4-5 says God planned this in love before the creation of the world.
The language of sons included daughters equally, since all who believe share the status of the firstborn Son. Adoption also looks forward: Paul says we wait eagerly for our adoption, the redemption of our bodies (Romans 8:23). Many teachers see it as the highest privilege of salvation, because justification gives a right standing and adoption gives a Father.
My verses
For all who are led by the Spirit of God are sons of God. For you did not receive a spirit of slavery that returns you to fear, but you received the Spirit of sonship, by whom we cry, “Abba! Father!” The Spirit Himself testifies with our spirit that we are God’s children. And if we are children, then we are heirs: heirs of God and co-heirs with Christ—if indeed we suffer with Him, so that we may also be glorified with Him.
But when the 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 our adoption as sons. And because you are sons, God sent the Spirit of His Son into our hearts, crying out, “Abba, Father!” So you are no longer a slave, but a son; and since you are a son, you are also an heir through God.
For He chose us in Him before the foundation of the world to be holy and blameless in His presence. In love He predestined us for adoption as His sons through Jesus Christ, according to the good pleasure of His will.
Behold what manner of love the Father has given to us, that we should be called children of God. And that is what we are! The reason the world does not know us is that it did not know Him.