When you’re born, you have a Father and Mother. And for the majority of your life, that’s true. (Given, some families become broken through divorce or death). However, God provides us with parents to be the overseers of our lives – to raise us, protect us, teach us and launch us into adult hood. But even when we become adults, they never stop being our parents.
The same is true of our walks with our Heavenly Father. At salvation, He becomes the spiritual overseer of our life. He trains us up, by way of His holy spirit, to live holy lives that glorify and honor Him. We learn from Him through His word. He prepares us for eternity and He never stops being our Father.
In Swaziland, the Lord taught me to call Him Poppa. As I walked through the hospital day after day, holding the hands of His precious children that are abandoned, being raised by one parent, or parentless, God reminded me that they are still His children. He calls them by name and refers to them as daughter or son. The word Poppa replayed through my head daily as I knelt by their beds and prayed His spirit into their little bodies.
One thing I desire most in my relationship with the Lord is intimacy. You always know when you’ve reached a new level of intimacy in a relationship with someone when you start giving each other nicknames. For example, when my sister and I were little we were sitting in the car one day waiting for our Momma to get in. We were being silly with each other and the question came up of, “what is “MOM” backwards?” Well, obviously we weren’t too bright, or our silliness had taken over our ability to comprehend – it’s clearly MOM. But we decided in that moment it was “Moom,” so of course, after that day, our Momma had a new “nickname”. She didn’t really appreciate it then, she actually thought it was disrespectful, but now she embraces it as a term of endearment.
This hit home again during our morning devotional. Chris led this morning and spoke on Galatians 4:1-7. This passage says:
“I mean that the heir, as long as he is a child, is no different from a slave, though he is the owner of everything, but he is under guardians and managers until the date set by his father. In the same way we also, when we were children, were enslaved to the elementary principles of the world. But when the fullness of time had come, God sent forth his Son, born of woman, born under the law, to redeem those who were under the law, so that we might receive adoption as sons. And because you are sons, God has sent the Spirit of his Son into our hearts, crying, “Abba! Father!” So you are no longer a slave, but a son, and if a son, then an heir through God”.
Before Christ came and died for sins, people were in bondage to the law. They thought they could be saved by it so their lives became enslaved to it – trying and trying to “get it right” but continuously failing to keep it. But with Christ’s death, we are declared free. At salvation the chains to our old lives are broken. We are no longer slaves. We are God’s children. Because of Christ, we have no reason to be afraid of God. We can come boldly into His presence knowing that He will welcome us as His family members.
In the same regards to adoption, under the Roman law, an adopted child was guaranteed all legal rights to his father’s property. He was not a “second-class” son, he was equal amongst all the other sons. As an adopted child of God, we share with Jesus all rights to God’s resources. As God’s heirs, we can claim what He provided for us – our identity as His children. As Romans 8:15-17 says, “for you did receive the spirit of slavery to fall back into fear, but you have received the spirit of adoption as sons, by whom we call, Abba! Father!”
So, He taught me to call Him Poppa. He taught me what it means to reach a new level of intimacy with Himself. He taught me that no matter what happens in this worldly life, He’s my eternal Father. I am no longer bound to slavery, because my Poppa has set me free. I am an adopted daughter of the King of the Universe. Praise the Lord.
My prayer is that you will find hope in our Lord. That He will take you further and deeper in intimacy and that you too will learn to call Him Poppa.
