All who are led by God’s Spirit are God’s sons and daughters. 15 You didn’t receive a spirit of slavery to lead you back again into fear, but you received a Spirit that shows you are adopted as his children. With this Spirit, we cry, “ Abba, Father. ” 16 The same Spirit agrees with our spirit, that we are God’s children. 17 But if we are children, we are also heirs. We are God’s heirs and fellow heirs with Christ, if we really suffer with him so that we can also be glorified with him.
Prayer is a staple of a vital faith that needs nurturing as individuals practice their faith in everyday life. The interconnectedness of prayer and life became abundantly clear when author Paul Chilcote discovered the journals of Elizabeth Rhodes, an early Wesley follower, and how she transformed in her spiritual disciplines by committing to memory a prayer that become an unusual blessing. Rhodes prayed for a “waking spirit, and a diligent soul” and in doing so realized that practicing prayerful life was practicing a Christ filled life.