Spiritual Slavery to Spiritual Sonship (19 page)

Do you honor the “little fish” who cross your path day by day? Or do you honor only the “big fish”? I never wanted my picture taken with little fish. They had no value. There wasn’t enough meat on them worth eating, and their picture didn’t give me bragging rights. But when I caught a big fish, I made sure I got a picture to show the world. There was plenty of meat to eat on the big fish, and there was money to be made from selling them.

If we give a gift of honor to the “big fish” who have the power to promote us or give us something we want, but we do not dispense gifts of honor to the “little fish,” those we feel have no value to us, then the honor we give to the big fish is actually manipulation and control, as we try to get something we want from them. In other words, if we are nice to the person buying us lunch but not nice to the one serving us lunch, then we are not a nice person, and we lack a heart of honor, humility, and sonship.

Sonship is not something you measure only by the way you respond to those in authority—big fish. Sonship is also demonstrated by the attitude we exhibit toward the little fish—the clerk in Wa-lmart at Christmastime, the person who cuts us off in rush-hour
traffic, the family at home. At church, do you give out gifts of honor to the nursery or maintenance worker as much as you do to the pastor?

The call to sonship is a call to honor
all
people. But such a call is impossible to fulfill on our own. The only way to do so is to be subject to Father’s mission—to submit to His love, and to look for ways to commit “senseless acts of humility and honor”—giving away gifts of God’s love that are not meant to profit us. “We
love because He first loved
us” (1 John 4:19).

E
very person on the face of the earth is a member of the “walking wounded.” There is not a single one of us who has not at one time or another been hurt by the words, actions, or indifference of another person. And all of us are guilty of inflicting wounds on others, most often those closest to us. We have criticized, demeaned, belittled, ridiculed, humiliated, intimidated, manipulated, controlled, exploited, or otherwise abused or misused others; and others have done the same to us. Sad to say, Christians can be just as guilty of this as anybody else. Church leaders can control or abuse their members, and church members verbally attack their leaders. Many of these wounds can last a lifetime, like open sores that stubbornly refuse to heal. This is why the principles of forgiveness and restitution are so important in the process of moving from slavery to sonship.

As we saw in Chapter Seven, forgiveness and restitution begin at home by forgiving our parents for misrepresenting Father’s love to us and by seeking their forgiveness for our rebellion and failure to honor them as sons and daughters. Learning to honor parental authority leads to the next logical step, which we discussed in the last chapter—recognizing our need to humble ourselves and to
focus our life upon being a son or a daughter to someone who will be a mentor or spiritual father or mother to us. Whether our sonship is genuine can often best be measured by the honor or dishonor we dispense to the little fish in everyday life.

Moving into this stage of the process often awakens in us awareness of other problem areas that we may need to deal with if we don’t want to become stalled by the
three basic fears:
the fear of
trusting
, the fear of
rejection
and
abandonment
, and the fear of
opening our heart to love
. Many of us have unresolved issues with authority figures beyond our parents—at home, at church, at work, and in the world. This awareness leads us to the fourth truth in our journey from slavery to sonship.

Is there any Christian who has never been hurt by church authority? Is there anyone who has never been taken advantage of by a boss, a coworker, or a friend? Unfortunately, that’s life in a fallen world. There really never has been a universal revelation of Father’s love on the earth. We’ve had a revelation of Jesus, a revelation of the Holy Spirit, and a revelation of power; and many ministries have been built upon the anointing of God, but few have been built upon a revelation of Father God’s unconditional, affirming, and compassionate love. That is why in moving toward sonship, we must forgive governmental authorities, forgive our coworkers, and forgive those within the church who have hurt us, disappointed us, or misrepresented Father’s love to us in the past.

Malachi 4:5-6 prophesies that in the endtime a fathering spirit will be released on the earth; but before there can be fathers, there must be sons, and before there can be mothers, there must be daughters. Those who embrace sonship today and “suffer” through the time of training and preparation for maturity, are the ones who
will embody the fathering spirit on earth tomorrow. In the meantime, it is important to be willing to walk in a heart attitude of honor and submission to all legitimate earthly authority.

Paul makes this abundantly clear in the 13th chapter of Romans:

There’s that word “subjection” again, which means underneath and dependency. Who was Paul writing to? The Christians in Rome. He told the Roman believers to submit to the authority of the Roman government, a government rife with corruption, assassination, immorality, idolatry, brutality, destruction, and death. How could Paul call on followers of Christ to submit to such an ungodly system? I don’t begin to understand, but I do know that Paul had a revelation of sonship. He understood the importance of believers having a heart attitude of humility, honor, servanthood, and submission.

Did the Christians subject themselves to everything the government decreed? No. Rome required that once a year every citizen and resident of the empire kneel before a statue of Caesar and declare, “Caesar is lord.” It was a political loyalty test, and those who refused were regarded as traitors to the empire. Most Christians refused, acknowledging only one Lord—Jesus Christ. As a result, many believers were persecuted severely, and some were killed in the arena or executed. What Rome never understood was that the Christians who understood sonship, their refusal to bow to Caesar notwithstanding, were the most faithful, law-abiding, and productive subjects in the empire.

With us, as with them, displacing the orphan heart begins in the natural by adopting the heart attitude of a son, not only toward our parents, but also toward all legitimate earthly authority, both governmental and spiritual. If we do not have the heart of sonship toward authorities in the natural realm, how will we ever have it toward God? As Paul says in these verses, all existing authority has been established by God; therefore, those who resist are opposing God and inviting condemnation on themselves. How can we be in sonship toward God if we are opposing Him?

This goes right along with Peter’s instruction to “honor all people” that we looked at in the previous chapter. “All people” certainly includes those in authority. Peter continues in the very next verse:
“Servants, be submissive to your masters with all respect, not only to those who are good and gentle, but also to those who are unreasonable”
(1 Pet. 2:18 NAS). Unreasonable? It’s easy to be in subjection to someone like Captain Kline, who was always there for me, who never criticized me, never demeaned me, never devalued me, and poured his life into me to make me a fishing boat captain. But what about the unreasonable authority figures in my life—the overdemanding boss, the controlling pastor, the authoritarian and demeaning teacher—those who just want to use me or take from me? Even then, God’s established principle applies of honoring them and making what is important to them important to me.

This doesn’t mean we should submit even to the point of going against the Word of God. The Christians in the Roman Empire refused to go against the Word of God, and many of them were martyred for it. But there is a principle that says if we resist authority, there is an issue in our heart that opposes the ordinance of God and opens the door to fear and judgment in our life.

When we dishonor authority, it is though we are saying, “If God put this authority in my life, then what a poor manager He
is!” Whenever we do not have a heart attitude of honor to those in authority, we are dishonoring God. We may think He has given us a raw deal, never realizing that God puts authority in our lives as a minister of good.

Consequently, those who oppose God will “receive condemnation upon themselves.” Does God condemn us? No, the Father judges no one (see John 5:22). He doesn’t have to judge us; we take pretty good care of opening the door to self-imposed curses; for when we oppose authority, we come into agreement with the first spiritual orphan—the father of lies who is a legalist. When we oppose authority, we come into agreement with the law, and we bring condemnation upon ourselves. God doesn’t curse us; rather the enemy has been looking for every open door through which to come in and steal, kill, and destroy. If he can align us with orphan thinking by our agitated resistance against authority, it will give him a key to our front door, and then the enemy has legal ground to come and go in our house as he pleases.

The sonship principle of humility, honor, and submission applies even to unreasonable authority; in Rome’s case, it was murderous, immoral, and corrupt authority. When we submit to unreasonable authority, we position ourselves to see God bless, honor, and elevate us in the midst of and in spite of that unreasonable authority. Inheritance is for sons, and God can release inheritance under any circumstances to sons who are subject to Father’s mission.

Paul continues in the next few verses:

Why does God want us to submit to unreasonable authority? Following the principle of submitting to all authority helps us learn to respect legitimate authority in spite of their personal blind spots. Every person in authority in our lives has character flaws, and it is easy for us to use those character flaws as justification for rejecting their authority. We need to learn to honor all people, and with our love fulfill the whole law. Submitting to all authority also helps uncover orphan thinking that may remain in us so that we can bring it to the Cross.

Have you forgiven the people who have misrepresented Father’s love to you? Why not make a list of those in authority who have hurt you—at work, at school, or in the church. Now, out loud, choose to forgive each one and speak the details of the hurt or disappointment. By forgiving them and letting go of the offense, you will begin to close the door that has been open to condemnation and that has given the enemy the key to traffic in your life.

In the fifth truth toward moving from slavery to sonship, I share my own real-life mistakes and self-imposed curses during my personal quest to discover sonship.

As with parental authority, simply forgiving earthly or spiritual authority for wounding you may not be enough to break destructive
patterns in your life. If you realize that you have caused others pain through weapons of dishonor or brought defilement through ungodly attitudes or behavior, you may find it necessary to go to them for forgiveness and, perhaps, restitution. (See Appendix B for more on the ministry of restitution.)

When I resigned as a Salvation Army Officer in 1986, I left with a good spirit. I had had a bad spirit for two years, but Phillip, a pastor in the area who had begun to mentor me, said, “You can’t leave with a bad spirit.” So before I resigned, I called headquarters and asked forgiveness from them for my agitated resistance against their policies.

After I left, I went back to the sea, captaining a sport-fishing boat out of Murrell’s Inlet, South Carolina, and began attending Pastor Phillip’s church, a small Spirit-filled church of about 75 (at that time). I aligned myself to Pastor Phillip, who was like a brother to me and a year older. In addition, our children were the same ages. I positioned myself underneath Pastor Phillip, supporting and helping him in any way I could.

When I left the Salvation Army, the church I had pastored was the fastest-growing church in our division. We were helping the poor and down-and-out, and many people were saved. Now, being aligned with Pastor Phillip, I went to him during my first week there and asked, “Phillip, is there anything I can do? I just want to get underneath; I just want to serve you.”

“Yes, there is,” he replied. “On the bulletin board, there is a sign-up sheet for those who will commit to cleaning the church and the bathrooms every week. Why don’t you sign up?”

I thought,
Don’t you know that I was near the top of my class in Bible school and was elected lifetime president? I pastored the fastest-growing church in my district, and you want me cleaning toilets? I’ve grown beyond that
. But what I actually said was, “Well, I’ll think about it.” So I got in my car and left, and I thought about it. The
Holy Spirit said to me, “Uh-huh, just look what you’re full of.” I turned around, went back to the church, and put my wife’s name on the list. Later, she made sure I was always right beside her as we cleaned the church together.