Do we have to work or strive to attain the position of full heir?

Les explains that in the biblical adoption picture, a son who reached the appropriate age and completed his training and tutoring was placed as a full partner with the father—not merely born into the family or legally taken from another family. He teaches that the glory of this is that at salvation we are born into God’s family by the Holy Spirit, but immediately God also places us as the full heir with Jesus Christ. We do not have to work for twenty years like Jacob did for his wives, nor strive and strain hoping to attain that position; it happens the moment we believe. That is why we can say Abba Father. In verse 17, if we are children, then we are heirs—not merely an heir down the line hoping for a little inheritance, but a joint heir, which implies equality: what is His is hers, and vice versa.