Abba Father

Galatians 4:6
Because you are sons, God sent the Spirit of his Son into our hearts, the Spirit who calls out, "Abba, Father." (NLT)

The verses before this tell us that God sent Jesus to redeem us so we might receive the full rights of sons. As sons and daughters, we have varying ideas of what that means.

It depends on the childhood we had. For some of us it was a loving family life with our Dad coming home from work and loving on us. Vacations were fun as we went away to the beach or on a trip to the mountains. Family meant together.

For others, we had childhoods that were well off, but our father was never around. Our mother ruled with the threat of what our father would do if we got out of line. He worked all the time and was out of town often. Vacations, when we got to take one, were times away from home usually without Dad.

And then there were families where the parents split while we were young. We went to live full time with mom and spent little time with dad. Mom would anxiously await the monthly child support check, but that was the bulk of our involvement with him. He was our biological father, but not much of an influence in our lives.

There are many other scenarios we could talk about and yours might be unique. In any case there are two ways we come to Christ viewing God the Father. He is either a loving, caring Father God or one whose love is questionable or perhaps conditional.

The Spirit of Christ lives within us. He is the Holy Spirit. He calls out to Abba, which is Aramaic for Father or Daddy. But do we feel the same way about our Father God as the Holy Spirit does? Do we give the Holy Spirit permission to accept the Father's Love?

Without fully accepting His Love, how can we accept the full rights as sons and daughters?