In union with the Father’s dearly loved Son we are dearly loved children. Within this relationship, we do not do what God wants so that we can get him to act favourably towards us in some way. That sounds like God has made a contract with us. He agrees to do good to us if we do what is good in his eyes.
This is a mistaken idea that we easily slip into. Instead, we must see clearly that God has not entered into a legal contract with us. He has rather bound us to himself in a covenant of love. And within this covenant relationship, we are his dearly loved children enjoying family love.

We did not establish this covenant relationship through our responses to God. Only God can create the relationship. Our personal responses create nothing, but God looks for them as we live in union with Jesus by his Spirit. The Spirit joins us to Jesus so that we live and move in union with him. We really do share in his life as we live in him and he lives in us. And within this union, we become dearly loved children who walk in love by the freeing and enabling power of the Spirit. We have been included in the relationship Jesus has with his Father in a transforming and renewing relationship with God—a relationship that calls for our response.