Sonship Through the Spirit
12 Therefore, brethren, we are debtors – not to the flesh, to live according to the flesh. 13 For if you live according to the flesh you will die; but if by the Spirit you put to death the deeds of the body, you will live. 14 For as many as are led by the Spirit of God, these are sons of God. 15 For you did not receive the spirit of bondage again to fear, but you received the Spirit of adoption by whom we cry out, “Abba, Father.” 16 The Spirit Himself bears witness with our spirit that we are children of God, 17 and if children, then heirs – heirs of God and joint heirs with Christ, if indeed we suffer with Him, that we may also be glorified together.
Those who have been saved by a work of God are now debtors to God. The work that He has done on our behalf is work that no man could ever do on his own and because of that our only option, our reasonable service for what was done for us, is eternal devotion to God, what He stands for, and His Kingdom. We are His alone, forever. How can we be so sure of that? Because it’s not us who hold onto Him but Him who holds onto us. We get weak, we fail and give out. God is not like that – He will never fail nor will He forsake us (Hebrews 13:5; Deuteronomy 31:6, 8; Joshua 1:5). The Spirit of God that lives within us is God’s promise that He will be with us forever. He has give us a down payment of our eternal bodies in that we now share a connection with God on the level of the Spirit. As we have been united with Jesus in His death and resurrection, we have also been united with God the Father and we will be with Him for eternity in Heaven. We are able to go directly into the throne room of God in prayer and petition the Creator of the Universe for our needs. He seeks our conversations with Him because it shows Him our hearts. While He IS God and He can choose to just look into our hearts on His own, it means more when we converse directly with Him and show Him by opening our lives to Him in prayer and turning to Him by forsaking the desires of our flesh.