Almighty ever-living God, Whom, taught by the Holy Spirit, we dare to call our Father, bring, we pray, to perfection in our hearts the spirit of adoption as Your sons and daughters, that we may merit to enter into the inheritance which You have promised. Through our Lord Jesus Christ, Your Son, Who lives and reigns with You in the unity of the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever.
Almighty ever-living God – Do you ever stop to reflect on how awesome God is? Indeed, He is awesome in the true sense of the word: He evokes awe and wonder when we think about Him. The marvelous old Baltimore Catechism #3 tells us, “When we say God is 'infinitely perfect' we mean there is no limit or bounds to His perfection; for He possesses all good qualities in the highest possible degree and He alone is 'infinitely perfect.'” God is all-powerful, all-present, all-knowing, all-loving, and eternal. Now that is truly awesome.
taught by the Holy Spirit – Jesus promised that “the Advocate, the Holy Spirit, Whom the Father will send in My name, will teach you everything and remind you of all that I have said to you” (John 14:26). If we open our minds and hearts, the Holy Spirit will guide us to truth. This isn't to say that we shouldn't study our faith through classes, discussions, books, etc. We should! But we should always do so with a receptivity to the Holy Spirit.
we dare to call our Father – “God has sent the Spirit of His Son into our hearts, crying, 'Abba! Father!'” (Galatians 4:6). “For you did not receive a spirit of slavery to fall back into fear, but you have received a spirit of adoption. When we cry, 'Abba! Father!' it is that very Spirit bearing witness with our spirit that we are children of God, and if children, then heirs, heirs of God and joint heirs with Christ...” (Romans 8:15-17). God has made a covenant with us. A covenant creates a family bond that makes us God's children, so we can (with the help of the Holy Spirit within us) dare to call God “Father.”
perfection in our hearts – In the language of the Scriptures, perfection refers to completeness, to everything being in its proper order. Only God can bring this about in our hearts, but we must cooperate and let Him.
the spirit of adoption as Your sons and daughters – We are God's children now, made His adopted sons and daughters through the covenant. Therefore, we must act like God's children. We must imitate our Father and our elder Brother, Christ. We must always remember the divine family to which we belong.
we may merit to enter into the inheritance which You have promised – We will never earn Heaven. God's grace alone can bring us to our inheritance, eternal life with Him. But we must cooperate with that grace. We must obey God's commands and repent when we fail. We must pray and love and hope and believe. In all of these, God allows us to merit for ourselves, to share in the merits of Christ, to work out our salvation (Philippians 2:12). God even gives us the grace to merit, but He expects us to do it! He expects us to embrace His promise, to make it our own, to desire it, and to strive toward our final destination, our home in Heaven.
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