In our last visit we discovered that the Holy Spirit makes the relationship we have with God intimate and authentic. We can come into God’s presence as sons and daughters and address Him, “Abba, Father” or in a more contemporary way, “Daddy.” This is possible because we are born into God’s family by the power of the Holy Spirit.
While referring to Isaac and Ishmael in Galatians 4 Paul makes this interesting statement in verses 28-29: “Now you, brothers, like Isaac, are children of promise. At that time the son born in the ordinary way persecuted the son born by the power of the Spirit. It is the same now!” In Galatians 3:7 it says, “Understand, then, that those who believe are children of Abraham.”
God promised Abraham he would have a son by Sarah. Though both of them were well beyond the age for having a child, God fulfilled His promise to them by the power of the Holy Spirit.
As sinners, we are as incapable of being transformed into God’s children as it was for Abraham and Sarah to have a child. It takes the power of the Holy Spirit to make that happen. Jesus told Nicodemus in John 3:5, “No one can enter the kingdom of God unless he is born of water and the Spirit.”
Paul told the Corinthians that when he came to them to preach the Gospel he resolved: “My message and my preaching were not with wise and persuasive words, but with a demonstration of the Spirit’s power, so that your faith might not rest on men’s wisdom, but on God’s power” (1 Corinthians 2:4-5).
True conversion takes place by the power of the Holy Spirit.