On Sonship
Christians can be born again and not walk as sons and daughters of God. An orphan spirit undermines much of our walk with the Lord. But an understanding of our positions as sons and daughters of God is an inheritance that we cannot overvalue. The following series of articles express the great need we have to step into our identity as sons of God.
On Sonship (Part I)
On Sonship (Part II)
On Sonship (Part III)
On Sonship (Part IV)
On Sonship (Part V)
On Sonship (Part VI)
On Sonship (Part VII)
Photo Credit (From Left to Right, Top to Bottom): Mareike by eflon, Father and Daughter by apdk, Hug by popofatticus, and Sun, Son, and Dad by lovelypetal.
On Sonship (Part VI)
The last few weeks we’ve been discussing the implications of sonship on our walk with Christ. If you’re interested, you can check out the previous posts in the series here:
On Sonship (Part I)
On Sonship (Part II)
On Sonship (Part III)
On Sonship (Part IV)
On Sonship (Part V)
God gives us spiritual parents.
One of the things that I love about God is how incredibly practical He is. Even though He is willing to give us Himself as a father, he knows that we were designed to live in relationship with other beings with skin. God stoops down to our level, changes us with His fathering heart, and even goes one step farther: He sends spiritual parents in our lives.
A spiritual parent is a human being who knows Christ as their Lord and is tasked with bringing you as an individual into your full sonship in God. Paul said to the Corinthians that though they had many teachers in Christ, they had one father—himself (1 Corinthians 4:15). He had become a father to the whole Corinthian church through being the first to bring the Gospel to Corinth. Paul had a special relationship because of that act that always gave him permission to speak into their messy situations. In an ideal setting, the person who led you to Jesus should be one of your primary spiritual parents. Unfortunately, that’s not always the case.
When a person comes to Christ, if the person that lead them to Jesus is either absent or non-existent (meaning the person came to know Jesus by simply reading the Bible, finding a tract, etc.) then a spiritual adoption must occur. When this happens, spiritually mature, well-fathered believers can and should reach out to new believers and assume the fathering role in their Christian walk. While this is not the best scenario for spiritual parenting, it will work in a pinch.
The goal of these spiritual parents is to raise these spiritual sons and daughters into their new Kingdom identity. The spiritual parent is tasked with loving with the Father’s love and being a physical representative of the Heavenly Father in the new believer’s life. Spiritual parents also will become channels of wisdom passed down from other believers (2 Timothy 2:1-2). They will also bring discipline and correction to those areas that are in need of it. Most who think they are spiritual parents believe it is done primarily through teaching. In reality, sonship is taught through life lived together, love shared, and wisdom passed on in life as situations arise. Spiritual parents are constantly “re-presenting” God as Father, so that the lies we naturally believe about God are dispelled.
It’s through this process of mirroring God the Father, teaching new sons how to experience sonship, and being a tangible fathering force that these spiritual parents reproduce spiritual sons. In the end the sons and daughters they raise will raise spiritual children of their own, because they’ve been well fathered. This process, continued for many generations of disciples, would pass on and expand the circle of family and sonship that God designed to rest on all of humanity.
God raises sons and daughters through natural parents, Himself, and spiritual parents. And now that we understand how God raises His children, we have to turn our attention to combatting the orphan mentality in us and in others. We’ll begin looking at that next week….
Photo Credit: Hug by popofatticus
On Sonship (Part V)
The last few weeks we’ve been discussing the implications of sonship on our walk with Christ. If you’re interested, you can check out the previous posts in the series here:
On Sonship (Part I)
On Sonship (Part II)
On Sonship (Part III)
On Sonship (Part IV)
God fathers us Himself.
God has always been a father. He was the father of our Lord Jesus Christ before the foundation of the world (Colossians 1:2-3, John 17:24), He was a father to Israel (Hosea 11:1), and He has been a father to the church of every generation. God has designed the world so that even though children are born without fathers (or born with terrible fathers), He will be a father to the fatherless. Psalms 68:5-6 describes how God protects the orphan and sets the lonely in families. This is something God does because He is a father.
We see this play out specifically when a man or a woman turns from their sin and accepts Christ as the leader of his or her life. At that point God gives us “the Spirit of adoption, by whom we cry out, ‘Abba, Father!” (Romans 8:15). This radical adoption breaks off every form of fear and abandonment and it is God’s answer to the harsh reality that not everyone has a good dad to call their own.
This Spirit of adoption is not just a warm, fuzzy love feeling, it’s much more practical than that. I know of one brother who really had very little fathering growing up. When he became a believer, he found himself totally unable to do simple things that a father usually teaches a son. His testimony is he held on to the promise that the Lord would be a father to him and God literally fathered him into adulthood. God would actually speak to him things a father would teach his son. But even if you’ve grown up knowing how to function in life, a father gives more than just instructions. His fathering presence frees us from the fear and insecurity that plagues mankind and stops us from every really achieving anything significant. Do not minimize the impact of being fathered by the One who created the role Himself.
When we come to know Christ, we gain access to God as our father. But like we started this series off saying, many people come to know Christ but never transition out of the orphan mindset. There are several major reasons for this, but one main reason is we were designed to relate to beings with skin. God hasn’t left us alone in that arena. He’s even prepared for that. We’ll look at that next time…
Photo Credit: Father and Daughter by apdk
Cluster Map
Pursuing Glory 