The Day of New Beginnings
A Heavenly Heritage
As we seek the Lord to experience the freedom and liberty of the Spirit, we find ourselves drawn more and more into the eternity of God. Ultimately, we are to be a timeless people. We are to be participators with Christ in His Melchizedek priesthood. “Without father, without mother, without genealogy, having neither beginning of days nor end of life (Heb. 7).”
Luke 14:
26 "If anyone comes to Me, and does not hate his own father and mother and wife and children and brothers and sisters, yes, and even his own life, he cannot be My disciple.
27 "Whoever does not carry his own cross and come after Me cannot be My disciple.
These passages are very difficult to understand. Christianity generally interprets them as meaning, “In comparison to our love for the Lord, all other affections are to be as hate.” In reality, this is but a watered down interpretation. There is a deeper truth here that Jesus is teaching. What’s to be in our hearts is not a hatred for our fathers and mothers and wives and children, per se, but hatred for all that has been generated from the flesh nature in our lives. We look to our natural lives, our natural parents, etc. and hate that which has been generated apart from the Spirit of God. It is those very bonds and ties in the natural realm that limit and hinder us from entering into higher realms in God.
There are cults that teach all worldly things such as parents and family relationships should be hated and renounced. This is blatantly false and a manifestation of Satan to discredit the true teachings of the Lord. Even the Ten Commandments make it plain: “Honor thy father and mother…” We are never to stop loving our father and mother, but we are to renounce that part of our heritage that came through the fallen Adamic bloodline. Our identification must be with the Lord through the Holy Spirit. This is the root of being born again. It’s Christ’s nature being formed within us that is the issue.
John 14 speaks of how it’s God’s desire to lift us up to the same spiritual level that He dwells on. When Phillip said to Jesus, “Lord, show us the Father and it’s enough for us,” Jesus replied to him, “Have I been so long with you, and yet you have not come to know Me, Phillip? He who has seen Me has seen the Father; how do you say, ‘Show me the Father?’” Jesus was saying He and the Father were on the same spiritual level. He and the Father were of one essence. What about Jesus’ natural mother, Mary? He no longer identified with His natural bloodline (Mt. 12:47-50). Jesus stated, “Who is my mother and who are my brothers? For whoever does the will of My Father in heaven, he is my brother and sister and mother.” Jesus was identifying with His Father in the heavens (literal), His heavenly essence; He was identifying with the Father’s spiritual nature! It was those generated from the Father’s nature that Jesus was calling His brother and sister and mother.
In verse 10 we read: “I will not leave you as orphans, I will come to you.” What did He mean by orphans? Didn’t the disciples still have natural families? But Jesus had created a new relationship in their lives. When praying to the Father, Jesus said, “They are not of the world, even as I am not of the world (John 17:16-19).” They had entered into a new existence. They had become part of a new race of people! A people of Spirit, born of the nature of God. If Christ had left them and not returned they would have indeed been orphans.
19 "After a little while the world will no longer see Me, but you will see Me; because I live, you will live also.
20 "In that day you will know that I am in My Father, and you in Me, and I in you.
21 "He who has My commandments and keeps them is the one who loves Me; and he who loves Me will be loved by My Father, and I will love him and will disclose Myself to him."
22 Judas (not Iscariot) *said to Him, "Lord, what then has happened that You are going to disclose Yourself to us and not to the world?"
Christ said He would come to them (vs.10). He was referring to the Holy Spirit that was to be given (vs. 16-17). Through the Holy Spirit He would be further revealed and manifested to the disciples in a way the world could not know. It was about coming to live on the same spiritual level as Christ.
The members of the body of Christ are brothers and sisters and mothers and fathers because they choose to do the will of their Father in, or of, the heavens. The body of Christ is a new creation, a generation of Spirit. It’s imperative to understand that as we break our bonds with natural bloodlines, etc. that we too will not be left as orphans. In 1st Thes. 2:1-12 we see the fathering/mothering ministry of Christ manifested through Paul. In verse seven Paul says: “But we proved to be gentle among you, as a nursing mother tenderly cares for her own children.” And in verses 11-12 he states: “Just as you know how we were exhorting and encouraging and imploring each one of you as a father would his own children, so that you may walk in a manner worthy of the God who calls you into His own kingdom and glory.”
The ministry of Christ to us embraces both the fathering and mothering. In His body these ministries are manifested to bring us forth as spiritual sons partaking of a heavenly heritage.