Abba! Father!

Readings:
Nehemiah 5
Romans 8:12-17

Focus:
Romans 8:15: "The Spirit you have received is not a spirit of slavery, leading you back into a life of fear, but a Spirit of adoption, enabling us to cry 'Abba! Father!'"

God gives us his Holy Spirit to dwell within us when we give our lives to him. And that means that we are more than just his followers. It means that he has adopted us as his children, his heirs.

This entitles us to call him "Father", or even "Daddy", as "Abba" has been translated. We are on an intimate footing with him. He loves us that much.

The old King James-style language of prayers and hymns that includes "thou" and "thee" for addressing God is an example of this. In older English, there were two forms of "you", one for use in formal situations, and the other for use in informal or intimate situations. "Thou" was actually the informal, intimate form of "you", similar to French "tu" or German "du". So in an earlier time, English speakers knew that they could call God with a family-style form of "you", just as, say, French speakers do now. God is that close to those who love him. He is our father.