A Revelation of Sonship
Part of the problem we have as Believers is that we don’t have a revelation of what it really means to be a Child of God. This post has never been published, but has served as a foundation for many articles on “Sonship” in The Celebration and as the basis for several sermons. It came to me during a worship service in 2003, and these notes appear here as I wrote them in my prayer journal at the time.
- Think on Abraham being willing to sacrifice his son, Isaac
- Think about the spiritual father, Moses, commissioning his spiritual son, Joshua, to go in and possess the land knowing that there were giants in the land that he would have to overcome
- Think about Father God, being willing to give His Son for the world
- Think about Jesus telling His sons, the disciples, that they would be reviled, persecuted and martyred
- Think about Paul telling his son, Timothy, to endure hardship as a good soldier
- Think on Abraham tithing to Malchizedek and the writer of Hebrews [Heb 7:9] saying that, since we were in Abraham’s loins, we are , therefore, the children of Abraham; so, we gave tithe to Malchizedek. In other words, as the father gave, he was giving that sacrifice knowing that his sons [who were in his loins] for generations would be committed thereby to that same sacrifice of giving.
Just as these examples in the Word sacrificially gave their children, so we need to know that the pattern of the church is likewise so. Apostles are fathers who press into new realms- rooting out, tearing down, building and planting- dealing with principalities and powers in a territory. The OLD pattern (the religious one) says that fathers press through and build so that the sons don’t have to. So that the sons will have it easy and “not have to go through the things I’ve gone through.” That is not the pattern.
The true pattern is that we are modeling and demonstrating warfare, sacrifice, mortification, giving your life away to our children so that they will know how to do likewise. When you commit to being a father, you are committing your sons, both spiritual and natural, to all of the hardships that you also endured for the sake of the gospel. What have we thought: that the enemy would go away, that we are exalted enough to eliminate him? No! Jesus says the thief cometh; that the prince of this earth will come. Peter says you have an enemy. The enemy remains for the next generation to contend with also. If we tell the next generation that they will not have to fight the battles that we have fought for the sake of the gospel, then we are lying to them and setting them up for failure. We must teach them to endure hardship so that they might be sons.
Religion will not accept this because it wants to confess problems away. That is why there is a fatherless generation in the church, a generation of spiritual bastards. Fathers have to love to the point of the Heavenly Father-being willing to sacrifice their sons. We have come to a place where we are willing to give our life away, but are we to the place where we love the Lord, where we are hungry for the cause of Christ to be fulfilled so much that we are willing to teach our children the hardship and suffering they must endure in order to be sons?
We should not look at our sons, both natural and spiritual, and feel relief or security in the falsehood that they are safe from any dealings with the enemy or hardship. That is a religious mindset and stronghold. Instead, we should look at them knowing that they will endure to the end if they have been prepared and trained, knowing that we can trust God as Abraham did to preserve them no matter what, knowing that our actions and decisions of faith have committed them also to this path of hardship and contending. This is true fathering and sonship…this is the pattern for Apostolic fathering…this is the way the true church is built…
Change your thinking!
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“Be still and know that I am God” ~ Psalm 46:10
