Today’s reading: Galatians 4:4-7
Our salvation and our re-integration into the family of God is a work of the Trinity. “As proof that you are children, God sent the spirit of his Son into our hearts, crying out, ‘Abba, Father!’” (v.6).
God created us and we are His children. However, due to sin, this relationship was cut. Thus we needed to be restored. The God who created us is also the God who restores us. God our Father did this through His own Son Jesus. So “when the fullness of time had come, God sent His Son, born of a woman,” (v.4) to die for us and so win for us our salvation and restoration. Then God sent His Spirit into our hearts, to enable us to make the decision to allow ourselves to be restored. Then are we able to cry out “Abba, Father!” The cycle of restoration is complete.
The Trinity points us to the most crucial aspects of our being children of God—faith, family and life. We are born into the world through the action of God our Creator. That is life. We are redeemed through the action of God the Son, in whom we believe and so are saved. That is faith. We are incorporated into the community of God, into the Church which is His body on earth, by the action of the Holy Spirit. That is family.
As such we are children of God, disciples of the Lord Jesus, and instruments of the Holy Spirit. As children of God we are to meet and know Jesus our brother and friend. As disciples of the Lord Jesus we are to live his very life by following in his footsteps and growing into his very own holiness. As instruments of the Holy Spirit we are to share the good news of salvation to everyone else. The cycle of salvation continues in ever widening circles.
Even as we were born we were already slaves to sin. But God works wonders. He redeems us, brings us back, and will ultimately bring us to our eternal home. “So you are no longer a slave but a child, and if a child then also an heir, through God.” (v.7).
Through God we undergo the stages in our lives: slave under the dominion of the enemy 🡪 child in the family and kingdom of God 🡪 heir who will enter into eternal dominion in heaven.
God the holy Trinity has done its work. Now it is up to us. We evangelize and bring people out of the dominion of the enemy; they meet Christ and know the power of his resurrection. Then we grow as children of God made in His image and likeness; we live Christ, becoming holy as he is holy, and being made perfect as the heavenly Father is perfect. Then we become workers of the Kingdom; we share Christ as we proclaim the good news of salvation in him. Then we enter into eternal life. In other words, we BE.LI.EV.E (BE a friend of Jesus, LIve the way of Jesus, EVangelize in the name of Jesus, Enter into eternal life)! Only then is the cycle of redemption truly complete.
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