I'm Pahpooh, but Not to You

Daily Reading: Galatians 4

Scripture Focus: 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. (Galatians 4.6-7)

Devotional Thought: A few days ago I was in IHOP - witnessing, of course. I would never go there to eat pancakes with warm maple syrup! - and I overheard a gentleman say, "Stay with Pahpooh." I looked around quickly to see if I knew him. You see, I've met lots of Grandpas, some Gramps, and a few Papaws... But, I only know one Pahpooh. That's me! Pahpooh is what my first grandchild - Avery - christened me when she first realized who I was. She didn't / couldn't say Papaw. Instead, it came out Pahpooh, and it stuck! I didn't have time to ask the gentleman his story, but we had a good laugh at each of us being "Pahpooh." He, like me, loved to hear his granddaughter call him "Pahpooh."

Pahpooh. Nobody else calls me that, but because they "belong" to me, my grandchildren have that special name for me.

God has a special name that we can call him: Abba. It is the Hebrew equivalent of saying, Daddy. We get to call God Daddy! Why? Because we belong to him. Slaves don't get to do that. We are part of the family. As Paul wrote later in this chapter we, "like Isaac, are children of promise" (v.28).

All the promises of life are ours as children of God. We are heirs to the kingdom! Think about being an heir to a vast fortune and empire. It would change your outlook, would it not? Well, we are heirs to an everlasting inheritance. And that, my friends, changes everything!

I'm Pahpooh, but not to you, only to my grandchildren. And God is Abba only to his children. Are you a child of God? You can be!

Prayer: Daddy, thank you for your amazing love! I am so glad that you have made me a part of your family. Help me to live in confidence, victory and freedom because of the certainty of my inheritance in Christ. Amen.

Psalm of the Day: 6 Oh come, let us worship and bow down; let us kneel before the LORD, our Maker! 7 For he is our God, and we are the people of his pasture, and the sheep of his hand. Today, if you hear his voice, 8 do not harden your hearts, as at Meribah, as on the day at Massah in the wilderness, 9 when your fathers put me to the test and put me to the proof, though they had seen my work. 10 For forty years I loathed that generation and said, "They are a people who go astray in their heart, and they have not known my ways." 11 Therefore I swore in my wrath, "They shall not enter my rest." (Psalms 95:6-11)