“Because you are sons, God has sent forth the Spirit of His Son into our hearts, crying, ‘Abba! Father!’” (Galatians 4:6)

Are you really a Christian? How can you know? The Bible gives us a number of “tests” of salvation. Paul indicates one such test here in Galatians 4:

He says in :6 that “because you are sons, God has sent forth the Spirit of His Son into our hearts, crying, ‘Abba! Father!’” This is an experiential aspect of our Christianity. If we have genuinely been saved, and adopted into the family of God (see :5), then God has sent His Spirit “into our hearts.” Ephesians 1:13 tells us that when we believed, we were “sealed in Him with the Holy Spirit of promise.”

So the Holy Spirit is present in the hearts of all those who are saved. And if He is there, then He is calling out “Abba” — an Aramaic expression something akin to our “Daddy!” — a very loving, personal term for “Father.”  (See also Romans 8:15)

This should be assuring for the Christian: “something inside of us” (the Holy Spirit) gives us that sense of kinship to God, because we are members of His family. Granted, this can be somewhat subjective — and it is certainly not the ONLY mark of salvation; the first Epistle of John for example lists several more — but still yet, one should ask himself: IS this present in my life? Do I have the Spirit in my heart, calling out to God as my Father?  Paul tells us here this is one of the marks of true salvation.