"And they sung a new song, saying, Thou art worthy to take the book, and to open the seals thereof; for thou wast slain, and hast redeemed us to God by thy blood out of every kindred, and tongue, and people, and nation; And hast made us unto our God kings and priests: we shall reign on the earth" (Revelation 5:9-10). Jesus is the King of kings. Which makes us... kings. Because He doesn't just rule and reign over us... He rules and reigns IN us and THROUGH us and AS us. We are not just IN the Kingdom, we ARE the Kingdom. But here's where we seem to miss it: We're waiting for Jesus to do "stuff." We're waiting for a "move of God." The move of God was the cross! Jesus did it ALL so we could get it all. We don't need a move of God. We need a revelation of Jesus. We need to know what that move of God was, and what it means for us right now. Because make no mistake: We are equipped and empowered to reign... on the earth. Right now. Now someday... TODAY. Jesus HAST (past tense) redeemed us to God. He HAST (past tense) made us kings and priests. That's not what we're going to be. That's what we are. As He is, so are we in this world. And I really want to harp on this: It's not about Jesus ruling over us with an iron fist and we better do what He says or else. It's not about--I saw this shirt the other day and it really bothered me. It said, "Jesus is my boss." Jesus is not my boss. Jesus is my LIFE. Jesus is my true identity. What's true about Him is true about me. He doesn't give orders and then I try to follow them. I present my body as a living sacrifice and He does whatever He wants to do in and through and as me. He rules and reigns IN me, not OVER me. And we need to understand this too, the Kingdom is the realm where the King rules and reigns. That's why I say we ARE the Kingdom. And that's also why the Kingdom is ever expanding. You know how wherever you go, there you are? Well, Jesus lives in you--LOVE lives in you--so wherever you go, there HE is. Wherever you go the light shines and the darkness flees. But unless we understand who we are and what we're capable of, we'll continue to walk around with our hands out like beggars. We'll continue to wait for God to do something for us, when He did everything He was going to do when He took up abode IN us. Way back in the garden Adam was given dominion over the earth. The problem was that he didn't know what he had, and he squandered it. Then Jesus took it back, and gave it back to us... by giving HIMSELF to us. And now we can fulfill this prophecy in Isaiah 32:1, "Behold, a king shall reign in righteousness, and princes shall rule in judgment." We can execute the righteous judgment--of life--that was handed down on the cross and we can experience--and share--the gift of God which is that eternal, everlasting, abundant, Resurrection Life!

What you call something is what it is. What you believe is what manifests in your life. That's why it's so important to understand that the Holy Spirit--our love receptor--is the Spirit of Sonship. The Holy Spirit is what allows us to call out, "Abba, Father." The Holy Spirit is what allows us to experience that Father/Son relationship with God. In the Old Covenant everything was from the outside in. External Laws forcing behavior modification. But that was never God's be-all end-all. God gave us the Law because 1. We wanted it. It made sense to our carnal mind. And 2. To bring us to the end of ourselves and bring us to Christ. The Law was never meant to be kept. It was meant to show us that it CAN'T be kept. That with man it is impossible, but with God all things are possible. Jesus fulfilled the Law (both for us and as us) because we couldn't. He brought us out of that external, religious, man-centered, performace based Old Covenant and into the New Covenant. And guys... Jesus IS the New Covenant. He didn't just give His life FOR us, He gave His life TO us. God conformed us to the image of His SON by giving us His Son's Spirit. By revealing Himself to us not just as Creator, but as loving heavenly Father. And now instead of living FOR a distant, angry taskmaster--which is how we saw God with our natural eyes--we can live BY a loving heavenly Father. We have placed as Son(s). Which does NOT mean we were not part of His family, but now we are. Being placed as a Son means we have been brought into the family business and given some responsibility. We have been trusted to take what we've been given and share it. To receive and release the love of God. Not just to be a Kingdom consumer, but a Kingdom exporter. The Kingdom is ever expanding. And it expands when we rule and reign on this earth. When we let the light that's inside us shine out of us. (And we don't let this light shine by trying really hard to make it shine. We let it shine by knowing and believing that it is already shining. It's not works, it's rest. It's not what we do, it's what Jesus did--both for us and as us.) Identity. It's so important. When you know who you really are--the inner man, the new man, the hidden man of the heart--that's when you can BE who you really are. And when you can cry out, "Abba, Father," when you can name God as Daddy, then you are defining yourself by your true identity as the beloved Son in whom He is well pleased. And that brings, first and foremost, the realm of no condemnation. The realm of liberty. THAT'S the Law of the New Covenant. The perfect law of liberty. Being ABLE to love becasue we ARE loved. Which is the New Commandment: Love one another as Jesus loves you. Loving God by loving one another with the love that He loves us with! Guys... Daddy loves you. He would literally rather die than be without you. And because of HIS great love for us... we now have love for each other!

"As the living Father hath sent me, and I live by the Father: so he that eateth me, even he shall live by me" (John 6:57). Being adopted, or placed as a Son, means living by the Father. And I think it's important that we understand the difference between living FOR the Father, and living BY the Father. But first let's address the concept of "eating" Jesus. What you eat is a big theme in the Bible. Man got in trouble way back in the garden of Eden because they ate the wrong fruit from the wrong tree. So let's track this: Jesus IS the Tree of Life. And the Tree of Life produces the fruit of the Spirit. The fruit of the Spirit is love. So when we eat Jesus--His body and His blood, the bread and the wine--what we are really doing is eating (or filling ourselves) with love. That's what the word, "love" in 1 John 4:8, "...God is love..." means. It means, "love feast." The same six course meal (the Six Steps to the Throne; crucified, died, buried, quickened, raised, seated) that Jesus prepared for us in the midst of our enemies. Let me say it like this: You are what you eat. You eat love... fill yourself with what you've been filled with... and then what's inside overflows out naturally! Then you stop living FOR the Father, as if He's separate from you and giving you orders that you have to obey or else... and you start living BY the Father. You start to be about the family business. Not because you're trying to earn something, but because everything Daddy has is yours. That's one thing that I really pride myself on having taught my son. He knows he doesn't have to beg me for things. If I'm having a sandwich--for example--so is he. Because what's mine is his. There have even been times where I'm eating something, and I get up (even for a second!) and when I come back he has finished eating my meal. And let me make this as clear as I can make it: That doesn't upset me. It makes me happy. I don't want my son to be afraid of me. I want him to know that we're in this together. I want him to know I've got his back. And, "If ye then, being evil, know how to give good gifts unto your children, how much more shall your Father which is in heaven give good things to them that ask him?" (Matthew 7:11). Now I'm not calling anybody evil... I'm simply saying that there's always a more excellent way. And the more excellent way is living BY the Father, rather than living FOR the Father. Letting Jesus live His own life in us, rather than us trying to live His life for Him. Nobody can live Jesus' life except Jesus. That's why He gave us His Spirit; so that His Spirit could join with our spirit and we could experience His life. We could experience the gift of eternal, everlasting, abundant, Resurrection Life as we call out, "Abba, Father." As we live BY the Father. As we live in the context of that Father/Son relationship. As we let God love us and love each other with that same love!

The Holy Spirit--the love receptor, the Spirit of Sonship--is what allows us to cry out, "Abba, Father." The Holy Spirit is what leads and guides us into all truth--the truth that the Father loveth the Son and hath given all things into His hands--by testifying of Jesus. Testifying of our true identity, which IS Jesus. The beloved Son of God. God in the flesh. Love in a body. And here's why it's so important that we can call God by His true name of Daddy: "And out of the ground the LORD God formed every beast of the field, and every fowl of the air; and brought them unto Adam to see what he would call them: and whatsoever Adam called every living creature, that was the name thereof" (Genesis 2:19). Part of dominion on the earth--part of ruling and reigning as kings and priests--is the ability to name things, or call things, or confess things. And whatever we name them, that's their name. What we believe defines our reality. Let me say it like this, "You are not what people call you... you are what you answer to." If you believe you're a "sinner" then that's going to be your reality. If you believe God is a distant, angry taskmaster who is out to get you for the slightest slip up, then that's how you're going to relate to Him. If you think God's out to get you then the only sane thing to do is the very thing that Adam and Eve did for the very same reason in the garden of Eden. They hid from the presence of God. They ran FROM Him instead of running TO Him. Because without the Holy Spirit that relationship of unconditional love between Father and Son seems too good to be true. Without the Holy Spirit it makes sense to have to earn your bread by the sweat of your brow. "Do good and be rewarded, do evil and be punished," makes perfect sense... to the carnal mind. But that's not what God--what Daddy--would have for us. Like any good Father, God yearns to take care of His Son(s). To protect us. To provide for us. And that's exactly why He gave us His Spirit. His Spirit (of Sonship) joined with our spirit, and we were placed as a Son. We were brought into the family business. We were equipped and empowered to rule and reign on this earth. Because that's what the family business is: Kingom business. The love business. But you can't give what you don't have. So unless you can name God as your Father, and name yourself as His Son, you'll always be trying to earn what we freely given FROM Father TO Son! Eternal life is a gift. And eternal life is knowing the Father and the One who He sent. Knowing God in the context of Sonship. Knowing that Daddy loves you. And when you know that love--when you know that you HAVE that love--then you can give it. You can share it. You can receive it and release it!

It's interesting to me that when Jesus came to the earth to show us who God is He came as a beloved Son. And He showed us a loving heavenly Father. That's always struck me as important. Because God IS love. And, apparently, the best way for us to understand that love is in the form of that Father/Son relationship. I know there are other pictures of love--the Lamb and His wife, for example--but Jesus really endeavered to hit home this Father/Son relationship. In fact, that's why He gave us His Holy Spirit. So that we could experience that relationship. So that we could know and believe that God loves us. That DADDY loves us. And here's the key to the whole Daddy loves us revelation: Daddy doesn't love His kids because of what they do. Daddy loves His kids because of who THEY are, and who HE is. Look at Romans 8:15-16 (NLT), "So you have not received a spirit that makes you fearful slaves. Instead, you received God's Spirit when he adopted you as his own children. Now we call him, "Abba, Father." For his Spirit joins with our spirit to affirm that we are God's children." Now remember, this adoption is not "you weren't in God's family, but now you are." This adoption is being PLACED as a Son. Being given responsibility in the family business. Which is what Jesus understood from a very early age. When He was "missing" and His parents found Him in the temple and they asked Him what in the world He was doing, Jesus said, "...How is it that ye sought me? wist ye not that I must be about my Father's business?" (Luke 2:49). Jesus knew who He was, knew who His Daddy was, and knew why He was here. And through the cross He gave us that same Spirit. That Holy Spirit that is our love receptor. That Holy Spirit that equips and empowers us to live an abundant, everlasting, eternal, Resurrection Life by letting Jesus live HIS life in and through and as us! The Holy Spirit does not make us fearful slaves, trying to earn love and acceptance from a distant, angry taskmaster. The Holy Spirit joins with our spirit--the deep calls out to the deep--and affirms our true identity as the beloved Son of God! The Holy Spirit leads and guides us into all truth--that the Father loveth the Son and hath given all things into His hands--by testifying of Jesus. By revealing Jesus to us and in us and through us. The Holy Spirit shows us who we really are by showing us who God--who Jesus, who LOVE--really is. And when we can see God clearly that's when we can call Him, "Abba, Father." That's when we can stop running FROM Him and start running TO Him. We can stop being afraid of His "wrath," or "punishment" and we can start to enjoy the gift that He has given us. We can relate to Him the way He relates to us; A Father loving (and affirming, and empowering) His Son and a Son living out of that unconditional love! That's the building block--the chief cornerstone--that everything else in this "Christian life" is built on. Daddy loves you!

I'm calling this Rant series "Daddy-o" because I tried to get Logan to call me that one time and he said, "You mean, 'Daddy'." That's who I am to him. Daddy. And I gotta tell you, that term kind of melts my heart. Because it's so... intimate. To me it kind of perfectly encapsulates our entire relationship. He's my son... and I'm his Daddy. Guys, that's the kind of relationship God wants to have with all of us! Look at Galatians 4:5-6 (NLT), "God sent him to buy freedom for us who were slaves to the law, so that he could adopt us as his very own children. And because we are his children, God has sent the Spirit of his Son into our hearts, prompting us to call out, "Abba, Father." Now obviously I want to get into the "Abba, Father," part. But first I want to work on the "adoption" part for a minute. And I want to point out that we were slaves to the Law... and we were freed from the Law. We, as a human race, had bought what the serpent was selling. We believed that we had to do in order to be. So when God offered us the Law of Moses it made perfect sense to us. But it was never what God wanted. He didn't want us jumping through hoops, trying to modify our behavior to a place where we might be accepted if we're good enough. Because in His eyes we were always good enough! Jesus hadn't even started His ministry yet when the Father declared, "This is my beloved Son in whom I am well pleased." He wasn't well pleased with what Jesus did... He was well pleased with who Jesus was! Who WE are! And look, when Logan does something good, I have to admit that it fills up my pride meter. But the times I find myself most pleased with my son are when we are just spending time together. Not "working," but resting. And that's what eternal life is! It's knowing the Father and the One who the Father sent. Knowing God in the context of that unconditionally loving relationship between Father and Son. But that's not something we could experience under the Law. That's not something we could experience without the Holy Spirit. So Jesus came as one under the Law, to redeem us who were under the Law. To bring us out of the bondage of sin and death. To bring us out of the power of darkness, where we couldn't see God clearly. This idea of God as an angry taskmaster is kind of the number one thing Jesus came to do away with. He came to destroy the works of the devil--the lie that the serpent hissed into Eve's ear in Eden's misty garden! So this adoption wasn't God saying, "You weren't part of my family, but now you are." This adoption was God showing us that we always were His! We'll probably pick up on this tomorrow, but in the King James Bible Galatians 4:5 has the phrase, "adoption of sons," and it means, "the placing as a son, Christian sonship in respect to God." And it has connotations of entrusting the son with the family business. Responsiblity. Maturation. Discipleship. Sonship. I guess I'm trying to say there's never been a time God wasn't your Father, and through the Holy Spirit you can call Him Daddy!

As He is, so are we in this world. What's true about Jesus is true about us. That's what He came to show us; not what we could be if we tried really hard, but what we truly are. He came to show us what God looks like. And what He showed us was a man who was filled with the Holy Spirit. A man equipped and empowered to receive and release the love of the Father. A man who could say, "I and my Father are one." A man who knew that He was God's beloved Son and who let Himself BE loved by God. Jesus wasn't showing us something that might be true someday. He was showing us what has always been true. God always has and always will love us. Because God doesn't just love... God IS love. And because that's true about Him... it's also true about us. We are LOVED, and because we know and believe the love of Christ we are LOVE. Love is perfected in us when it overflows out of us. We are bold in the day of judgment when we understand the judgment that was handed down (from Father to Son) on the cross. The life sentence that was given after God accepted the SACRIFICE of the slain Lamb. God didn't kill Jesus. God was IN Christ reconciling the world to Himself. Jesus laid His life down so that He could pick it back up. He gave His life for us and He gave His life to us. Now, instead of going around judging things according to appearance--according to good and evil--we can be bold enough to simply execute the judgment that was handed down. We can bring people out of death and into life just like Jesus did. By loving them. By laying our lives down for them. By receiving and releasing the love that was always there for us. By sharing the gift that we've been given. See, the cross didn't turn us into something God could love. He already loved us. We just didn't believe it. It seemed too good to be true. What the cross did was it turned us into something that could receive that love. It got rid of anything and everything (sin, or unbelief) that stood in between us and that Father/Son relationship between Creator and creation. It emptied us out of all of the mess that we filled ourselves with when we were looking for love in all the wrong places, and it filled us with the Holy Spirit--the love receptor--of God. Jesus took away the sin of the world (unbelief, or believing that we have to earn God's love) by becoming sin and dying. And when He died, we died. Sin died. Death died. The light shined and the darkness fled. Now we are revealed to be the righteousness of God in Christ. As He is, so are we in this world. Seated on the right hand--power seat--of God. Equipped and empowered to rule and reign on this earth even as the King of kings rules and reigns in us and through us and as us. In Him we live and move and have our being, and in us He lives and moves and has His being! It's not Jesus AND me, it's Jesus AS me. It's a total identification with my true identity: Jesus, God in the flesh. Love in a body. God in MY flesh. Love in MY body. In my body, and overflowing out of it!

Our key verse for this Rant series is 1 John 4:17, "Herein is our love made perfect, that we may have boldness in the day of judgment: because as he is, so are we in this world." Today I want to focus on that phrase, "Herein is our love made perfect." And this is what I want to say about it: Wherein is our love made perfect? Herein. In the truth that as He is, so are we in this world. In the truth that there is absolutely no difference, no separation, between us and Jesus. It's not Jesus AND us, it's Jesus AS us. In Him we live and move and have our being. In us He lives and moves and has His being. His love is made perfect... in us. Because love isn't just a noun. Love is a verb. An action word. Loves needs two things: Someone to give it, and someone to receive it. And when we receive it, when we understand how love connects us and binds us and holds us together, that's when it's made perfect. Because God always has and always will love us. But before the cross we didn't know it. We didn't believe it. It seemed too good to be true and the best our carnal mind could come up with was an external law of behavior modification so that we could try to earn the love an acceptance of God. The problem with that, of course, is that love doesn't come from the outside-in. It comes from the inside-out. It comes from the heart. And that's why God circumcised our heart. He cut away the flesh of human effort--of trying to earn what can only be received--and revealed His heart beating with love in our chest. He got rid of the veil, and revealed Himself to us (by revealing Himself IN us and THROUGH us). He rolled away the stone of the Law and brought us into the Kingdom realm where peace rules and reigns. Where we can stop working (spiritually) and start resting. Where we can SEE Him as He is, and in seeing Him as He is we can BE Him as He is by letting Him be Himself in us. If you try to live Jesus' life you will fail and you will get discouraged. No matter how hard you try, there will always be one thing you lack. Nobody can live Jesus' life except Jesus. That's why He gave His life FOR us, and gave His life TO us on the cross. He made our love perfect by giving us His Spirit--the love receptor--so that we might know and believe the love of Christ. So that we might be able to receive it and release it. And THAT'S when love is made perfect. When we share what we've got. When we receive and release. When we receive BY releasing. When we understand that as He is, so are we. When we understand that He IS our life. We don't try to act like Him, because at BEST that's just an act. We BE transformed (into what we have already been transformed into) by the renewing of our minds. By LETTING the mind of Christ, that's already in us, BE in us. Not by trying to earn something, but by receiving what was freely given. Not by trying to be somebody we're not, but by embracing our true identity and being who we really are!

Ok. Boldness in the day of jugdment. A boldness that comes from our total and complete identification with Jesus. Let me work this for a minute. First things first: Judgment day was 2,000 years ago on the cross. But it's also every day. We don't judge... but we excute the judgment that God passed down from the Father to the Son. John 5:22 tells us that, "...the Father judgeth no man, but hath committed all judgment unto the Son." The Father judged the Son. And because Jesus had drawn us all into Himself when He was lifted up on the cross, His judgment became our judgment. As He is, so are we in this world. We were never judged, except that we were in Him when HE was judged. And that judgment of God was NOT, "I'm really mad and I have to kill someone." Jesus laid His life down so that He could pick it back up. Jesus' death was a SACRIFICE, not a judgment. In fact, God was IN Christ on the cross. He didn't leave Him or forsake Him, and He didn't kill Him. Look at Hebrews 9:27-28, "And as it is appointed unto men once to die, but after this ithe judgment: So Christ was once offered to bear the sins of many; and unto them that look for him shall he appear the second time without sin unto salvation." First comes death THEN the judgment. So death can't BE the judgment, right? Right. Jesus died--both for us and as us--and then Jesus--and us in Him--was judged. Judged RIGHTEOUS. His sacrifice was accepted. Just like with Cain and Abel, the slain lamb was the sacrifice that God accepted. So the judgment of God was not death. The judgment of God was raising His Son (and us in Him) up from the dead! That's why we can be bold in the day of judgment, and bold about the day of judgment! Because the judgment was in our favor! Jesus was judged favorably. He became sin and died so that sin might die. So that we might become the righteousness of God in Him. And then He appeared the second time--the new birth--in us and through us and as us without sin. And when we see that appearance--in ourselves, in the mirror--that's when we are changed into that same image from glory to glory. That's when the love inside of us starts to manifest all around us. That's when we can execute the judgment of life that the Father gave to His Son! And what is abundant, eternal, everlasting, Resurrection Life? It's a life filled with love. To live is to love and to love is to live. So when we know that as He is, so are we in this world, when we know and believe the love the Christ, that's when His love is perfected in us. That's when we are filled (to overflowing) with the love that we are already full of! That's when we TRULY are as He is. Because that's what He is. That's WHO He is. God is love. And we are as He is, so WE are love!

As He is, so are we in this world. Jesus said it like this, "I am my Father are one" (John 10:30). There is no difference and no separation. Jesus lives in us, and He lives through us, and He lives as us. It's not "Jesus AND me." It's "Jesus AS me." I can't live His life, only He can do that. But He IS my life. In Him I live and move and have my being. In me He lives and moves and has His being. This is such an important concept to understand. Because everything that Jesus revealed about Himself--everything He revealed about the Father--He was actually revealing it about US. When He came to show us who the Father is, He came in the same kind of body that we have. He came to show us that WE are the visible address of the invisible, omnipresent God. He came to show us that if we want to see God, all we have to do is look in the mirror. Because as He is, so are we in this world. Jesus said it in another way like this, "At that day ye shall know that I am in my Father, and ye in me, and I in you" (John 14:20). What day shall we know that? At the cross! When God poured His Spirit out on all flesh. The Holy Spirit--our love receptor--is what lets us see clearly. And that's so important because what you see is what you be. John the Revelator put is like this, "Beloved, now are we the sons of God, and it doth not yet appear what we shall be: but we know that, when he shall appear, we shall be like him; for we shall see him as he is" (1 John 3:2). As He is, so are we in this world. When we SEE Him as He is, we shall be like Him. See, the truth will set you free (and make you free), but only if you KNOW the truth. Remember when Paul scolded the church at Corinth and said he spoke to their shame because some people didn't have the knowledge of God but they did? It's not my job to scold anybody, but I am here to say: We know this stuff! And as my pastor always says, "When you know it... throw it." We know how He is. And don't get me wrong, I'm not saying we have this all figured out. I'm not saying we understand everything we know. But I AM sayiing we have an unction from the Holy Spirit and we know all things. We know that Jesus is seated at the right hand--the power seat--of the Father, and that He comes in the clouds. We know that Jesus is living in us and through us and as us. We know that we are kings and priests with the power and authority to rule and reign on this earth. Guys... Jesus did it all so we could get it all. And now we have it all because we have Him. Because we know and believe the love of Christ. He gave His life FOR us, and He gave His life TO us. We don't need to get anything, we simply need to receive what we've already been given. And when we do that, we'll have no fear in the day of judgment. We'll be able to EXECUTE the judgment that God passed down 2,000 years ago on the cross! But we'll get into that tomorrow. For today, we need to understand that who He is is who WE are. We are One. When we see it... we be it.