Sonship and Our Walk with God
Dearly beloved of God, now are we the sons of God! When? NOW! The moment we confessed the Lord Jesus and believed that God raised him from the dead, we were saved; born again of the spirit from God.
God determined beforehand for us to have the sonship of children by Jesus Christ according to the good pleasure of His Will. God is now our Father and we are His kids.
Being His kids we are all the rights and privileges and ability and inheritance of that sonship. In Christ, each and every child of God has been blessed with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly realm. It is all of them in all of us.
Each and every one of God’s children is justified from sin. We have redemption through Jesus Christ’s blood, the forgiveness of sins according to the riches of His grace, which He has abounded to us.
Each and every child of God is sanctified by the spirit we received in the new birth. God set us apart for Himself. He separated us from the common lot of people by His divine favor towards us in Christ Jesus. We are most certainly beloved and highly favored in His sight.
God has saved us and called us with a holy calling, not according to our works, but according to His own purpose and grace, which was given us in Christ Jesus before the time of the ages. He called us to His kingdom and glory. (Just reading these words give me chills.)
How do we stand before God our Father? In Christ, we stand before God as righteous, holy, without blame, and unimpeachable in His sight. We are never less than this in the Father's eyes.
In Christ, we have access by one spirit unto the Father. We can speak to Him any time we like. As His kids, we can walk right into the throne of grace and speak freely with Him having access with confidence through the right way of believing regarding Christ Jesus. We have the spirit of sonship!
The spirit of sonship gives us spiritual ability. We have the manifestation of the spirit given to us for godly profit. The manifestations of the spirit enable us to do the works that Jesus did when he walked the earth, and greater works.
In Christ we have the victory over sin and death through his accomplishments, and we have the hope of salvation, and an inheritance as heirs together with Christ.
When we were born again of the spirit from God, we entered the kingdom of God, and we joyfully anticipate physically entering it when Christ returns to gather us up to meet him in the air.
Everything we received as the children of God is part of our sonship. Having sonship we should want to walk with our Heavenly Father in the good pleasure of His Will. This is what makes life sweet. Our fellowship with him makes it possible to be full of joy and live with thanksgiving in our hearts.
All these realities of sonship are permanent, and nothing we do or don't do can alter them. Jesus Christ accomplished them, and God our Father freely gave us all things with Christ because of His great love for us and by His wonderful grace.
We have to decide that we will believe what God says if we are to walk in these realities. This is a matter of our fellowship with the Father.
Our mind is not affected by the new birth. It must be changed and renewed to believe what God says that we received in Christ Jesus.
In His Word, the Father exhorts us to be transformed by renewing our minds so that we can prove the good and well-pleasing and perfect will of God. We accept His Word by believing it, and we then apply it.
For example, God says that in Christ we are righteous, which means that we stand before God without any sin, guilt, or condemnation. If we are to benefit from this reality in our walks, we must think as God instructs us to think.
Instead of walking around condemning ourselves, or doubting who we are in Christ, we change our minds to think as God instructs us to think. If we continue to think about ourselves as we did before we were born again, it is a self-inflicted wound. We are righteous now! We’ve been forgiven!
As we think according to what God accomplished in Christ Jesus we will be transformed in practice.
Whether we renew our minds or we don’t does not change the reality of the new birth, it affects our quality of life as God’s children.
Renewing our minds is to believe who God says we are in Christ, to believe we have what He says we have, and we can do what He says we are capable of doing.
Renewing our minds to the Word of God affects our confidence in God.
It affects our boldness as sons of God.
It affects our walk in the love of God .
It affects our confidence to manifest the power we received in the new birth.
It affects our living with the peace of God.
It affects how we live as givers.
It affects our kindness to one another so that we forgive one another as God forgave us in Christ.
Renewing our minds enables us to walk in the realities we received in the new birth.
I Corinthians 1:9
God is faithful, by Whom you were called unto [into] the fellowship [koinomia: communion, participation, sharing, fellowship] of His Son Jesus Christ our Lord.
God our Father freely gives us all things with Christ. We share in his accomplishments in the new birth. We have a sharing relationship with him. Choose to walk in these realities, dearly beloved of God, so that your joy may be full.