Sonship – Receiving God as Father

I want to invite you to set aside time to listen to this audio teaching session: Sonship – Receiving God as Father. 

“I feel behind…”

“If anything good is going to happen, it’s up to me.”

“Why is life so damn hard?”

“Why does it feel like life is always up to me?”

“I feel all alone.”

How often have these sentences floated through your mind?  If you’re like the average man, these sentences are so painfully familiar you have come to accept them as normal.  So many of these “issues” in our life are merely symptoms of living in the deep and false reality of feeling fatherless.

The anger that seems to explode over small issues.

The pull to give our best to our work, only to bring the scraps to our wives and children.

The resignation.

…All, conditions of Fatherlessness.

You see, Adam’s story is every man’s story.  God created a world, a Kingdom, in which we were designed to flourish as sons of a loving, generous and intimate Father.  You don’t have to look far to see that we live east of Eden in these times.

Here is the dilemma.  We are fiercely committed to making life work on our own terms.  But God, the Father, has rigged the world so that we can’t find life apart from Him.

What would it look like to become a son?  To receive a spirit of sonship whereby we could literally cry out Abba Father, from a sincere and full heart (Romans 8).

George MacDonald brilliantly stated,

“The hardest, gladdest thing in the world is to cry Father! from a full heart…the refusal to look up to God as our father is the one central wrong in the whole human affair; the inability, the one central misery…since we are the sons of God.” 

MacDonald continues,

“we must become the sons of God.”

Take 10 minutes for your heart today.  Watch the trailer from Robin Hood.  Ask yourself, what would it be like to walk in a spirit of sonship?  What would it look like to believe that your Father is a great man.  That He has a dream of a Kingdom.  And that you are your Father’s son?

Robin Hood Trailer

And watch this profound clip of Derek Redmond.  A world champion athlete who smashed the British record at age 19 in the 400m but continued to fall short of ever winning an Olympic medal.  In the ’88 Olympics he withdrew due to injury.  Derek and his father Jim were inseparable, so they continued fighting, training, hoping for an Olympic medal.  This clip is from the ’92 Olympics in Barcelona, and this was their year.  This was Derek’s race.  What would it be like to believe in the Father’s relentless love?  To live as a son, in His strength, His provision, His protection, His affection…over you?

Derek Redmond Olympic Race Clip

“Since we are the sons of God, we must become the sons of God.”

Those who are led by the Spirit of God are sons of God. For you did not receive a spirit that makes you a slave again to fear, but you received the Spirit of sonship. And by him we cry, “Abba, Father.” The Spirit himself testifies with our spirit that we are God’s children. (Romans 8:14-16)

Take a risk.  Begin every day for a year with this prayer.  “Father I choose to believe I am your son. I receive a spirit of sonship and I ask for you to Father me today.”

For more on Sonship:

Read chapter two of Becoming a King.
Watch session two of the Becoming a King Video Series.
Work through session two of the Becoming a King Study Guide.