It’s good to be back. May started off incredibly busy and then we had some issues that prevented getting a new blog on here. We are back now, and I am excited about today’s message. I just want to take this moment to say that my goal in these is simply to encourage you. I’m not trying to dive deep into things and give you the greatest revelations or anything like that. I just simply want to provide you with an encouraging word that keeps your eyes on the Truth, the Gospel, and God’s Love. This is a beautiful question. Before I answer the question, we need to know what sin is. Is it the behaviors we do? Is it when we do bad things? Is it when we break the 10 commandments? In Isaiah 66, God explains what HE considers sin, “For when I called, no one answered, when I spoke, no one listened…”
All God wants is to talk to us, for us to listen, and talk back. He wants to actively love you, and for you to love Him back. He already loves you. But there is a difference when we are aware that someone loves us. God wants us to listen and answer. To Him, sin is a broken relationship. To us, sin is us choosing to do bad things. They are not the same, and we need to learn His definition. Back to the question, does He hate sin? He considers our rebellion disgusting, a filth, darkness, and slavery. He obviously doesn’t like that sin exists. Jesus came to remove our sins. Psalms 103 is a beautiful scripture about how God sees us, regardless of our sins: 6 The Lord works righteousness and justice for all the oppressed. 7 He made known his ways to Moses, his deeds to the people of Israel: 8 The Lord is compassionate and gracious, slow to anger, abounding in love. 9 He will not always accuse, nor will he harbor his anger forever; 10 he does not treat us as our sins deserve or repay us according to our iniquities. 11 For as high as the heavens are above the earth, so great is his love for those who fear him; 12 as far as the east is from the west, so far has he removed our transgressions from us. God has removed our sins from us, as far as the East is from the West. Jesus paid our debts, once for all sins of the entire world. Zechariah 3:9 says that Jesus would remove all the sins of the land in a single day, but what most don’t know is the word here for “land” is the same word for Earth in Genesis 1:1- ha’aretz. So Jesus removed our sins. 2 Corinthians 5:21 takes it even further! Jesus BECAME sin so as to remove it, and He exchanged your sins for His righteousness. Does God hate sin? In a word, Yes. Absolutely He does. But to think that God hates your sin is absolutely wrong because if you have sin, then Jesus failed at His job to remove all of it. You don’t have sin. You have His righteousness. Colossians 1:22 says that Jesus presents you Holy, blameless, and free from accusation to the Father. Does He? Is the bible correct in saying this? Then it would be wrong to focus on hating sin. God loves us. Don’t focus on sin. Focus on Him. In Him is fullness of Joy.
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Last week, we learned about Sonship. It is a huge topic that rarely gets addressed. This week I want to talk about how to apply it to our lives. Before we get into that, let me just clarify why we say Sons and not “sons” or “sons and daughters.” It really is important. God calls all of us, both male and female, Sons. I am using a capital S for extra emphasis. I am not talking about gender. In the Hebrew world view/culture, only sons inherit anything. We are heirs of God. So Sons are heirs. But to God, we all are heirs. Therefore, all are Sons. I want to run a scenario by you to teach a little about what we are really talking about. I think we can all relate to it, regardless of the specificity of the example. I’d like you to recall being 7 or 8 years old. If you were like me, that was the age I realized people were making fun of me. Another boy in class made fun of everyone, and I was laughing. Suddenly, I was his target, making fun of the way I laughed. I had two choices: 1) become introverted, with low self-esteem, afraid to laugh out loud anymore, or 2) harden my heart and determine to never get hurt again by becoming a fighter. Throughout my life, I chose both many times. You most likely did, too, or you just chose one or the other. Both are the thoughts of orphans. Both are the result of us taking things into our own hands and falling short of the whole purpose of Jesus dying: to set us free. If we aren’t aware of this truth, then we allow things to shift us and mold us and change us. Eventually we believe that we are the way we act. “I am not a loving person,” “I am a fighter”, “I am confrontational”, etc. We actually believe the lies, that we are depraved and vile. The circumstances of our lives have made us who we are… but it is all just lies. No matter how you respond in this way it is not the response of a Son. Thankfully, Christ comes into our lives, shows us the Father, and we start a relationship with Him. Holy Spirit clothes us to heal all our wounds, and to transform our minds, but we have to allow that. The Way, the Truth, and the Life comes and shows us who He is and who we are. Here, in the knowledge of Him and our Sonship, we can release the pains of our past and walk in newness of life. We can be free, just as He promised we would be. Last week, I mentioned that we say God hates sin. If He hates sin, can’t be around it, and can’t stand it, how then did He become it? But why did He become sin? He did it in order that a trade could happen. He became sin so we could be righteous. Sons know they are righteous, not because they did good things, or because they didn’t do bad things. They know they are Sons because they know who their Father is. Someday, we will grasp this fully. As for now, we rely on Holy Spirit to reveal it and walk with us. Every time a circumstance is trying you, and you find yourself losing godly character, being affected by that stuff, you need to change your perspective. You (me, all of us) can lose your perspective so fast. But if God really is Lord of your life, if you truly know He is LORD, then when all that stuff comes at you, you just keep your eyes on Him and those things just don’t matter. So, let’s finish with you back at 8 years old. Your friends start laughing at you, making fun of you for something, and it hurts. But now, you know you’re a Son of God, and He is LORD… so you smile and laugh with them because you realize they don’t know what they are doing, they are not your enemy, and they don’t realize they are Sons. You take a deep breath of Truth, and you thank God that He loves us all so much. You feel peace instead of turmoil, joy instead of pain, and realize you are free from the things of this world. You’ve learned how to live in your Sonship. Sonship is not a word we use very much in Church. To be honest, I had never heard anyone use this term until about 2 years ago, although I have read it in my Bible many times. The first time I noticed it was when I was reading Romans 8, specifically verse 15. In this verse, it refers to sonship as a spirit that Holy Spirit teaches us about. So apparently it is very important, because one of the jobs/roles of Holy Spirit is to teach us about Sonship. What is it? Sonship, according to Romans 8:14-17, is a spirit that is revealed to us that helps us to understand that we are heirs to the throne of God, co-heirs with Christ, adopted children of God, and not orphans any longer. So what kind of spirit is this? Well, there are 2 different uses of “spirit” in the Bible: 1) a garment that you are clothed in/with (Isaiah 61:3)- such as a garment of praise, or a spirit of fear, a spirit of infirmity, or a spirit of rebellion. Without getting too deep into this (a blog isn’t the best place to teach), these spirits operate as a covering that encompasses us and motivates us either to sin and rebel, or to draw closer to God. 2) a mentality/perception that dictates the way I live (Ephesians 4:23)- some translations actually remove the word spirit and say attitude of your mind. I believe the spirit of Sonship is the 2nd kind of spirit. Holy Spirit brings a way of thinking into our lives that helps us to see things differently than we used to. He changes our perspective, our attitude, and our perceptions. The concept of Sonship is beautiful. Before we are given this mentality, we are taught that God hates sin, can’t stand when we do, and that we need to stop sinning. We spend our entire lives trying to remove sin from our lives, and many people refuse to even talk to God “until I get rid of this issue.” We believe these lies, and live by them, but if we can grasp the truth of Sonship we will realize they are lies. God doesn’t hate sin. Now, I am not saying He likes sin either… Sin is not part of His Kingdom. But if God hates sin and can’t be around it, then why and how did He go to the Garden to see Adam and Eve? They sinned, and He came to them. He clothed them and talked with them. Scripture says love covers sin (Prov 10:12), and God is love so God covers our sin. That doesn’t sound like He hates… nor does He let sin remain, and Paul wrote in Romans 8 that the Holy Spirit gives us the spirit of Sonship to remove sin from our lives. This is why Sonship is so important. Holy Spirit gives us the spirit of Sonship for a purpose: to help us put to death the misdeeds of the body and to remove our sinful nature. If we can grasp the reality of our Sonship, our lives will truly change. What is the difference in the behavior of a Son raised by good parents and an orphan that doesn’t know their parents? A Son has learned that his parents will provide everything he needs for this life. They are content, patient, and full of trust. An orphan does not have that luxury. Before you knew Jesus, you lived as an orphan- as did I. But we now know our Heavenly Father, we know He is love and that He pours it out constantly, we know He pours out grace as a gift/reward for our faith in Him. We know faith requires Love, Hope, and Trust. Faith that is missing any one of these three is not faith at all. And we know that God has provided and is providing everything we ever need. Our responsibility, then, is to believe and receive this new way of thinking, this attitude that is a gift of God. Is it easy? No. It’s actually very foreign and can be extremely difficult to remove the lies and old habitual way of thinking. But that spirit of fear, the one God didn’t give you, the one that is the opposite of the spirit of Sonship, that spirit causes us to use fear as a motivator all the time. We must learn to use love as our motivation. Thankfully, Holy Spirit is with each of us right now, just wanting to reveal more and more to us. Today, in this moment, take the time to pray to Holy Spirit, and thank Him for the Spirit of Sonship He has given you. Invite Him to reveal more to you. And finally, love people, love yourself, and love God. He is your Father, and you are His heir, His son. |
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