The Daily Devotional Podcast

Road to Abide - 9 | Galatians 4: 1-7

• Waypoint Church

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0:00 | 3:45

This reflection reveals that abiding flows from belonging to God as His children, not from striving to earn acceptance through performance. It invites us to relate to God from a place of security and nearness rather than fear or obligation.

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“May the Lord bless you and keep you — and may His presence guide you this week.”


SPEAKER_00

Today we're reading Galatians four verses one through seven. Think of it this way If a father dies and leaves an inheritance for his young children, those children are not much better off than slaves until they grow up, even though they actually own everything their father had. They have to obey their guardians until they reach whatever age their father set. And that's the way it was with us before Christ came. We were like children, we were slaves to the basic spiritual principles of this world. But when the right time came, God sent his son, born of a woman, subject to the law. God sent him to buy freedom for us who were slaves to the law so that he could adopt us as his very own children. And because we are his children, God has sent the Spirit of His Son into our hearts, prompting us to call out Abba Father. Now you are no longer a slave, but God's own child, and since you are his child, God has made you his heir. Identity shapes relationship. When someone lives like they're unwanted, distant, or uncertain of where they belong, it affects how they approach everything else. The same is true spiritually. Many people relate to God primarily through obligation, performance, or fear of getting things wrong. Paul describes something different in Galatians 4. He explains that through Jesus, believers are no longer living as slaves under the law, but as sons and daughters welcomed into God's family. The relationship has changed fundamentally. And because you are sons, God sent the Spirit of the Son into our hearts crying, Abba Father. Abba carries a sense of closeness and belonging within a family relationship. God is not described as distant or merely formal. Through the Spirit, believers are brought into a relationship marked by nearness, trust, and access. As we get closer to John 15 and Jesus' words on abiding in Him, we see that abiding is not maintaining proximity to a reluctant God. It's learning to live from the reality that we have already been welcomed into his household. The Spirit continually reminds believers that they belong to the Father. That doesn't remove reverence or obedience. It changes the posture underneath them. Obedience no longer flows from trying to secure acceptance. It grows from relationship. We remain with God not as strangers trying to gain access, but as children learning to live within the love of the Father. The invitation to abide is rooted in that identity. We remain with God because He's already drawn us into His family. Before I close in prayer, here's a question to wrestle with.