Not so, says St. Paul, all through this very Epistle to the Galatians.  That is not being reverent to God.  It is insulting Him.  For it is despising the honour which He has given you, and trying to get another honour of your own invention, by observances, and frames, and feelings of your own.  Do not say, ’When we have received the earnest of God’s Spirit, by which we can cry, Abba, Father! then we shall become God’s children;’ for it is just because you are God’s children already—­just because you have been God’s children all along, that God has taught you to call Him Father.  The Lord Jesus Christ told men that God was their Father.  Not merely to the Apostles, but to poor, ignorant, sinful wretches, publicans and harlots, He spoke of their Father in heaven, who, because He is a perfect Father, sends His sun to shine on the evil and the good, and His rain to fall on the just and on the unjust.  The Lord Jesus Christ taught men—­all men, not merely saints and Apostles, but all men, when they prayed—­to begin, ‘Our Father.’  He told them that that was the manner in which they were to pray, and therefore no other way of praying can we expect God to hear.  No slavish, terrified, superstitious coaxing and flattering will help you with God.  He has told you to call Him your Father; and if you speak to Him in any other way, you insult Him, and trample under foot the riches of His grace.

This is the good news which the Bible preaches.  This is the witness of God’s Spirit, proclaiming that we are the sons of God; and, says St. Paul in another place, ‘our spirit witnesses’ to that glorious news as well.  We feel, we know—­why, we cannot tell, but we feel and know that we are the sons of God.  When we are most calm, most humble, most free from ill-temper and self-conceit, most busy about our rightful work, then the feeling comes over us—­I have a Father in heaven.  And that feeling gives us a strength, a peace, a sure trust and hope, which no other thought can give.  Yes, we are ready to say, I may be miserable and unfortunate, but the Great God of heaven and earth is my Father; and what can happen to me?  I may be borne down with the remembrance of my great sins; I may find it almost too hard to fight against all my bad habits; but the Great God who made heaven and earth is my Father, and I am His son.  He will forgive me for the past; He will help me to conquer for the future.  If I do but remember that I am God’s son, and claim my Father’s promises, neither the world, nor the devil, nor my own sinful flesh, can ever prevail against me.

This thought, and the peace which it brings, St. Paul tells us is none of our own; we did not put it into our own hearts; from God it comes, that blessed thought, that He is our Father.  We could never have found it out for ourselves.  It is the Spirit of the Son of God, the Spirit of the Lord Jesus Christ, which gives us courage to say, ‘Our Father which art in heaven,’ which makes us feel that those words