Daddy-o part 5
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!