No Longer Slaves to Performance

We all fail, and we will continue to fail. But many in the Body of Christ think of themselves as total failures in everything. They feel they can’t do or say anything right and they condemn themselves repeatedly.

These burdened believers go to church hoping to hear something they can latch on to that might heal them of ongoing failure. But we don’t have to “get fixed” in order to earn his blessing. He has already blessed us! Jesus says, “You toil and spin in a way that flowers never do — yet God graces even plants with beauty and life. Don’t you know you’re infinitely more valuable in the Father’s eyes? You don’t have to worry and strive to please him. He enables you to be exactly who he wants you to be — because he loves you” (see Matthew 6:28-30).

Paul saw the Galatian Christians laboring under this kind of burden. He wrote to show them how God’s way is with his children: “God sent His Son … to buy freedom for us who were slaves to the law, so that he could adopt us as his very own children. And because we are his children, God sent the Spirit of his Son into our hearts, prompting us to call out, ‘Abba, Father.’ Now you are no longer a slave but God’s own child. And since you are his child, God has made you his heir” (Galatians 4:4-7).

We are not slaves to any system of performance. Instead, Paul says, God has drawn us to himself tenderly, as his “own child.” Plus, Paul uses a word for “adopt” here that has two meanings. One meaning is strictly legal. But the other means “to put into place, to cause to belong.” Our heavenly Father doesn’t just legally adopt us, showing acceptance and approval. He gives us his attention, his affection, even his authority. And he blesses us with his own nature: “You have been born again, not of perishable seed but of imperishable, through the living and abiding word of God” (1 Peter 1:23).  

When Jesus went to the cross, it was a demonstration of his great love for us. He stood in our place because we’re so valuable to him. God wants to show you how powerfully you belong in his family. He has made you an heir not to an earthly burden, but to a great heavenly inheritance!