Spirit of Sonship

Romans 8: 9-15 “You, however, are controlled not by the sinful nature but by the Spirit, if the Spirit of God lives in you.  And if anyone does not have the Spirit of Christ, he does not belong to Christ.  But if Christ is in you, your body is dead because of sin, yet your spirit is alive because of righteousness…. For you did not receive a spirit that makes you a slave again to fear, but you received the Spirit of sonship. And by Him we cry, “Abba, Father.”

Praise God that we can turn to the Spirit.  Praise God we have been given the Spirit of sonship.  But as sons and daughters of anyone, every so often is it easy to rebel.  To say, I don’t care, I everyone else is doing it.  When we asked Christ into our hearts, and the Holy Spirit entered our bodies, it took up residence in us.  It began a good work in us.  Just like our earthly parents raised us to be good, moral individuals, it is still easy to stray from what they have taught us and what we know is true and righteous. 

I remember the first time I ever said a bad word.  I was around 6 and living in Long Beach, California.  We lived across the street from the school and I can recall going across a big bridge that went over a very busy road to go and see my sister who was in the middle school.  As I would pass over that bridge, graffitied everywhere were cuss words.  I had asked my mom what they meant and she told me that they were bad words that I was not supposed to ever say.  So, being a kid, I went into the bathroom that night and held up my middle finger 3 times and said the f-word twice.  After I did it, I was gripped by fear, I ran out of that bathroom and told my mommy right away and cried into her chest.  The spirit that my parents had instilled in my was telling me that what I had done was wrong. 

The first time that we do something wrong, we know that it is wrong.  We are convicted, we feel terrible for disobeying our father.  It is at this time that we have to make the decision, do we run to him and throw our arms out confessing what we did and how terrible it was, or do we try to hide it from God? 

Parents always seem to know if you did something that you weren’t supposed to do.  The first time I drank when I was underage (and the last time too), I was at my cousin’s apartment for the fourth of July.  He was mixing up drinks and my older sister (also underage) and I were drinking them.  I remember my sister writing a note to one of her friends telling them what all she drank, and my parents of course found said note.  I also remember her lying to protect my cousin.  Since she lied, I had to lie too.  It was terrible.  I hated lying and at that time, I had to choose who I was going to be loyal to, my sister or my parents.  Was I going to tell my parents the truth or keep my sister’s secret?  Ultimately I chose to keep the secret and it ate at me for years and years and years.  Finally when I got up enough guts to tell about what REALLY  happened that day, my sister had move out and was married and I was in college.  When I did tell my parents, they said that they knew.  That was it, they knew and they appreciated me telling them.  If my earthly parents know stuff that I have been struggling to keep a secret from, don’t you think that God, our Heavenly Father knows too? 

We have the choice when we do wrong.  We are convicted usually right then and there and we can either (wo)man up and confess or we can ignore that feeling and then usually it is so much easier to do something else bad.  When we became a son/daughter of Christ, we said, please take me into your family, I want to love you, honor your name and be a good example for this family. We didn’t go in with the intention to scar and mar the name of God.  Fortunately, we are allowed to cry “Abba, Father” to God.  He has given us a Spirit of sonship.  We chose that spirit and lets not let our Father down.