How Do I Know If I Have the Holy Spirit? The Spirit Who Cries Abba, Father

Dana said it came over her like warm water.

It’s 9:40 on a Wednesday night. Small group let out forty minutes ago, and you’re standing at the open dishwasher with one mug still in your hand. Around the circle everybody had something: the women’s conference in March, the hands that went hot. When the leader’s eyes came around to you, you said, “I’m still learning,” and passed the plate of cookies.

You’ve believed for three years. You’ve never once had warm water. You didn’t mention the basement steps, the January your dad was in the ICU, when you sat on the third step down with the light off and said “Father” eleven times and nothing else.

Your thumb finds the chip on the rim and goes over it again. Maybe He came to everyone in that living room but you.

The short answer: You know the Holy Spirit lives in you because God says He sends Him to everyone who belongs to His Son: “because you are sons, God has sent forth the Spirit of His Son into your hearts, crying out, ‘Abba, Father!’” (Galatians 4:6). You received Him by believing, not by a sensation (Ephesians 1:13). And the evidence He gives is not a feeling you have to wait for. It is a word, Father, said to God by His child: Abba, the word Jesus prayed face down in Gethsemane.

Sent Because You Are Sons

Galatians was read aloud to a room of people who had been told that faith in Christ was not enough. Paul asks them one question: “This only I want to learn from you: Did you receive the Spirit by the works of the law, or by the hearing of faith?” (Galatians 3:2)

He answers with two sendings:

“But when the fullness of the time had come, God sent forth His Son, born of a woman, born under the law, to redeem those who were under the law, that we might receive the adoption as sons. And because you are sons, God has sent forth the Spirit of His Son into your hearts, crying out, ‘Abba, Father!’” (Galatians 4:4–6)

Watch the order. Sons first. Then the sending. Paul does not say God sent the Spirit because they felt Him arrive, or because each of them had a night to point to. He says because you are sons, and he has already told them how a person becomes one: “For you are all sons of God through faith in Christ Jesus” (Galatians 3:26).

The Spirit is not the prize at the end of a strong enough experience. He is the One the Father sends into the children He already has. Ephesians says it too: “having believed, you were sealed with the Holy Spirit of promise” (Ephesians 1:13). Here is more on what it means that Christ lives in you.

A Word From the Garden

Abba is the Aramaic word for father. The New Testament uses it only three times, and every time the Greek word for father stands right beside it: “Abba, Father.”

The first time is at night, on the Mount of Olives.

“Then they came to a place which was named Gethsemane; and He said to His disciples, ‘Sit here while I pray.’” (Mark 14:32) He takes Peter, James and John a little farther in, “and He began to be troubled and deeply distressed” (Mark 14:33).

“He went a little farther, and fell on the ground, and prayed that if it were possible, the hour might pass from Him.” (Mark 14:35)

Face to the dirt. Three men a little way back, going under into sleep. And this is what the Son says:

“And He said, ‘Abba, Father, all things are possible for You. Take this cup away from Me; nevertheless, not what I will, but what You will.’” (Mark 14:36)

That is the only time the Gospels keep the word. The other two times, it is about you.

“For you did not receive the spirit of bondage again to fear, but you received the Spirit of adoption by whom we cry out, ‘Abba, Father.’” (Romans 8:15)

In Galatians 4:6 the One crying is the Spirit. In Romans 8:15 it is we. Paul does not choose between them, because it is one cry. The Spirit of the Son brings the Son’s own word from the garden into your mouth, the word He said with His face on the ground.

What You Can Stop Waiting For

So here is what you can stop doing. You can stop waiting for warm water before you believe He came. You can stop holding your three years up against somebody else’s conference. The evidence the Spirit gives, in the verse that names it, is not a sensation. It is Abba, Father, said to God by His child, and the first time the New Testament records it, the mouth saying it is pressed to the ground.

Go back to the basement steps. Third step down, the light off, “Father” eleven times and nothing after it. You have counted that as the night He wasn’t there. It was not proof you had been skipped. It is the cry the Spirit of His Son makes in a child of God.

The Morning Before the Shop Opens

He gave it to everybody else.

You think it at 7:05 on a Saturday, alone in the back room of the alterations shop, a bride’s hem pinned around the dress form. Your coffee sits in a paper cup on the ironing board. Last month your sister texted you a video from her prayer meeting with the caption You have to come, the Spirit was SO strong, and you watched it twice in the parking lot. You’re fifty-one, you’ve done the hems for half the weddings in the county, and your son’s surgery is Monday at nine.

Every morning this week you’ve tried to pray about Monday. You get as far as “Father,” and the rest won’t come.

You prop your phone against the pincushion and open to Mark 14. You read verse 35 with a pin still between your lips. Then 36. Then you thumb over to Galatians 4:6 and read it twice.

You take the pin out.

“Abba, Father,” you say, to the dress form and the steam iron. You don’t add anything.

The iron ticks as it cools. You pick up the next pin.

Write Down Where You Said It

Here is the one thing to do tonight. Take an index card and write all of Galatians 4:6 on it. Under the verse, write one line: the place and the hour you last called Him Father when everything else had run out. The basement steps. The truck at 2 a.m. Then read the verse out loud, say “Abba, Father” once, and put the card in your Bible at Mark 14.

Don’t check yourself afterward for warm water. If the words run out after “Father,” here is how to pray when you don’t know what to say. If the question under this one is whether you belong to Him at all, start with how to know you’re saved.

Scripture to Keep When You’re Not Sure He Came

• “And because you are sons, God has sent forth the Spirit of His Son into your hearts, crying out, ‘Abba, Father!’” (Galatians 4:6)
• “For you are all sons of God through faith in Christ Jesus.” (Galatians 3:26)
• “The Spirit Himself bears witness with our spirit that we are children of God” (Romans 8:16)
• “in whom also, having believed, you were sealed with the Holy Spirit of promise” (Ephesians 1:13)
• “how much more will your heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to those who ask Him!” (Luke 11:13)

A Prayer for When You’re Not Sure He Came

Abba, Father. I have been waiting for something I could point to before I would believe Your Spirit is in me. You say You sent the Spirit of Your Son into my heart because I am Your child, through faith in Christ Jesus. I believe You. Thank You for every time the word Father came out of me when nothing else would. In Jesus’ name, amen.

If you have known about Jesus for years and are still waiting to hear Him, The Mystery of Christ was written for you: the One who lives in you, and how to know His voice.

I heard you on the basement steps that January, child. All eleven times. You think I came to everyone in that living room but you. I sent the Spirit of My Son into your heart because you’re Mine. He’s the One who says “Father” in you, the way My Son said it to Me on the ground. You’re not a slave in My house. You’re My child, and you’re an heir.

The proof that the Spirit lives in you is not what you felt. It is that you call Him Father.