Aug 31, 2022
Title: Heirs but Slaves
Web Description: As believers in Christ, we are heirs of God and rightful owners of everything that He has provided. At the same time, we can walk as if we do not possess any of what is ours, as if we were slaves under guardians and managers. Yet there is a point in our maturity when the Father grants us access to our inheritance. As we grow in God, there should be a drive in us to reach in every day to have more of what He has provided for us; we must live in it and manifest it in our lives.
Show Notes: In Paul’s analogy, a son who is an heir of his father’s household is just like a slave. As a child he is under guardians and managers until he is old enough to receive the inheritance. We too are heirs of all the promises and provisions of God in Christ. Yet our ability to control or move in these things is extremely limited. We too are under guardians and managers—impasses and blocks that stop us from accessing all that should be ours—until we are mature enough to receive our full inheritance.
It is important to understand that Yeshua (Jesus) had the same flesh that we have. He was the heir to all things from the Father, but He had to learn obedience by the things that He suffered. He had to go through the process of being made perfect. He had to come to the place where He was no longer under guardians or managers or any restraints that would hold Him back until He was fully a Son in possession of the full provision God made for Him.
Yeshua is our example. He is our pattern that we are to live by. And we read in Hebrews that He “offered up both prayers and supplications with loud crying and tears to the One able to save Him.” We should follow this same pattern of crying out to God, seeking Him that we might grow and learn obedience, that we might be made perfect as Christ was made perfect in relationship to the Father. Christ walked in God’s provision when He was on the earth in His flesh. We can apply the same effort and energy to our walk with God that Christ did and trigger the response from the Father that activates our inheritance in our lives right now.
Key Verses:
- Galatians 4:1-2. “As long as the heir is a child, he does not differ at all from a slave.”
- Hebrews 5:7-14. “He offered up both prayers and supplications with loud crying and tears.”
- Luke 6:12. “He spent the whole night in prayer to God.”
- John 16:15. “All things that the Father has are Mine.”
- John 5:19. “Whatever the Father does, these things the Son also does in like manner.”
- John 8:28. “I speak these things as the Father taught Me.”
- Psalm 135:16–17. “They have eyes, but they do not see; they have ears, but they do not hear.”
- 2 Peter 1:1-4. “His divine power has granted to us everything pertaining to life and godliness.”
- 2 Peter 1:5-15. “For this very reason also, applying all diligence, in your faith.”
- 2 Peter 3:18. “Grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.”
- Jeremiah 29:13. “You will seek Me and find Me when you search for Me with all your heart.”
Quotes:
- “We have this tremendous inheritance in Christ through salvation. And yet I believe that we only function in a very limited amount of what is there for us.”
- “I wish we could really grasp the urgency of how Christ lived in a relationship with the Father, knowing that it really was life or death.”
- “We need to get out of the littleness of our concept of what salvation is all about, of what the cross of Christ is all about, of what the resurrection of Christ really provides for us.”
Takeaways:
- As heirs of God in Christ, we are owners of everything that He has provided, but our immaturity restricts us from controlling or moving in these things. We need to grow into the maturity that triggers God granting us full access to His great provision.
- We have grown dull in our awareness of what God has made available to us. It is only as we seek His provisions, revealed through His Word, that we are able to grasp what is ours to walk in. We need to seek God for the understanding of everything we have in this great inheritance and the provisions that God has given us in Messiah.
- Once we have an understanding of what is available, then we should give ourselves in a relationship with Christ to the Father and be pursuing these things. Let us follow what God said to Israel through Jeremiah the prophet. We will seek Him and find Him when we search for Him with all our heart.