Pour Out Your Heart Through Prayerਨਮੂਨਾ

A Life of Belovedness

Galatians 4:6 says, “Because you are his sons, God sent the Spirit of his Son into our hearts, the Spirit who calls out, ‘Abba, Father.’” Isn’t it interesting that both Galatians 4 and Romans 8 use the phrase, “Abba Father,” when talking about adoption?

Abba is an Aramaic word for “father.” For Jesus, it meant acceptance, relationship, and intimacy. Abba was so important to Jesus that his followers left it untranslated in their gospel narratives. There’s no other word quite like it.

Do you remember the most famous use of Abba coming from the heart of Jesus? It was in the garden of Gethsemane. On the night of his betrayal, just before his death, he led his disciples to this garden around midnight. He prayed and prayed, while his friends kept falling asleep.

So Jesus is on his knees, alone, middle of the night, weeping, sweating blood. He prays, “Abba Father.” Rarely, or perhaps never, would any Hebrew teacher or theologian use Abba to speak to God. This, after all, was a simple word used by small children before advanced words were learned.

“Abba.” It is our first word in life, before our minds and bodies are fully developed. “Abba.” It may be our last word in life—as our bodies and minds fail us at last. Indeed, God is our Alpha and Omega, our beginning and end, but at both points and between, he is still our Abba. When you know love of the Father on an Abba level, you are radically secure.

Christianity is not about following the rules. It’s not about fitting into a group of people. It’s not solely about justification by faith, or even repentance and conversion. After all, what are we saved into anyway? The family of God! Everything else flows downstream from being adopted by a gracious and compassionate Father.

The challenge, then, is believing this. The apostle Paul prayed that we might have all the spiritual strength of God—all the almighty, universe-creating, soul-redeeming, eternal power of God—for this one thing, to know the love of Christ (Ephesians 3:14–21). It takes a mighty work of God to get his love deep within us.

The greatest challenge in the Christian life is getting the love of the Father into our hearts. We might mentally assent to God’s love. We might know all the verses and creeds affirming it. But are we really living in his love? Has the love of God become the air we breathe and the water we drink?

As Paul wrote in Romans 5:5, “God’s love has been poured out into our hearts through the Holy Spirit, who has been given to us.” What a life-changing verse! The Father wants to pour his love into your heart through the Holy Spirit.