Sons of God

 Sons of God

February 13, 2025

Romans 8:12-17

12 So then, brethren, we are under obligation, not to the flesh, to live according to the flesh— 13 for if you are living according to the flesh, you must die; but if by the Spirit you are putting to death the deeds of the body, you will live. 14 For all who are being led by the Spirit of God, these are sons of God. 15 For you have not received a spirit of slavery leading to fear again, but you have received a spirit of adoption as sons by which we cry out, “Abba! Father!” 16 The Spirit Himself testifies with our spirit that we are children of God, 17 and if children, heirs also, heirs of God and fellow heirs with Christ, if indeed we suffer with Him so that we may also be glorified with Him.

We have been looking at the doctrines of the faith as laid out in Romans. But we are not careful, we can get caught up in the intellectual understanding of these things; propitiation, justification, sanctification, glorification, etc. We need to remember that we aren’t saved by understanding these things in our mind, but we are saved saved because God the Father loves us, and has adopted us as sons. All that Jesus did on the cross was for our benefit because He loves us. I am particularly subject to this problem, having been trained over many years to think about everything and to try to understand and analyze everything . Some things don’t need to be analyzed, they need to be accepted by faith, and appropriated into our soul and spirit. Knowing that God the Father loves us is not something that we can understand intellectually. I know, I have tried. It is only when the Spirit of God reveals it to your spirit that you really comprehend it, and can cry out, like Paul says, “Abba! Father!”. It is then that we realize that we are heirs to the promise, and that forgiveness, holiness and the ability to please God are gifts. They are part of our inheritance as sons. We just need to accept them. Perhaps that is one meaning of the verse that we often use as a call to worship:

Habakkuk 2:20

20“But the LORD is in His holy temple.

Letall the earth be silent before Him.”

Our voices clamor and our minds inquire, but to truly understand the Father’s Love, sometimes we just need to be silent before Him.