Sonship Identity and Autonomy

March 4, 2012 By 2 Comments

By Robert

Last week I wrote about Sonship in terms of feeling safe with fathers and opening our hearts to allow their influence in our lives. I want to build on that this week. Healthy sonship identity leads to increased capacity for autonomy. This is where maturity really happens.

Think of physical abuse for a moment, a slap across the face when you didn’t even realize you were saying something wrong. This treats a person like an object, diminishing sonship identity, because it does not respect their thoughts or feelings. It causes the person to experience feelings of powerlessness, to struggle with initiative, and with taking personal responsibility.

Romans 8:16 says, “For the Holy Spirit speaks to us and tells our spirit that we are children of God.” This is our identity, we are children of God. “For He planned in love, for us to be adopted as His own children…accepted in the beloved” (Eph1:5, 6 Amp.).

Man rebelled. Adam choose the independence of knowing good and evil, to choose for himself how he would live life. Even though God created Adam, the air he breathed, the water he drank, and the food he ate, God didn’t destroy him for his betrayal. God tried to talk with Adam but he did not take responsibility for his actions, he blame shifted, “That woman you gave me.” It is also noteworthy that God also did not act in co-dependence and rescue Adam from the consequences of his choices. This is good parenting that builds a healthy identity. It is important to know Father God as one who respects free will and one who is also secure enough to allow us to learn from our wrong choices. This is well exemplified in the story of the prodigal. The father never closed his heart toward the rebellious son, nor did he run to him in the pig pen.

“Think about healthy childhood development. A wise parent will allow increasing autonomy, encouraging the child to make decisions and face the consequences. When we see a person who has never grown up they often blame shift and justify, not accepting responsibility for their choices. Such a person takes little or no initiative but is highly responsive to outside influences, blown this way and that according to the prevailing wind of other persons. This may be extreme, but everyone is challenged by this some.” Ted Ward

When we can see God’s heart toward us and receive His discipline, knowing it is for our actions, and not an attack on our person, we mature. We are able to see how our wrong behavior hurts our relationship with God and others. We learn reciprocity in the world that teaches us greater community, openness, humility, empathy, and core values. These values become integrated in us producing greater autonomy. Not because we have to or we’ll be rejected, but rather because we have a healthy identity in God’s love and value that love and desire to give it to others from a deep place inside of us.

Filed Under: sonship, Spiritual Maturity Tagged With: , ,

Are You Fathered?

February 25, 2012 By Leave a Comment

By Robert

Picture two nine year old boys staring out the window of an orphanage longing for simple things. A family to be with on Christmas morning, the taste of warm cookies and milk after school. God put a deep longing in us for loving family. Closeness with God is founded in being a son comfortable with his father. Living as fatherless leaves us languid, without an inheritance, without emotional resources and opportunities that only fathers can give. How do we learn sonship?

Was dad there with acceptance and comforting love when I gave it my all but still struck out and my teammates sneered and scoffed? Did he rejoice with me when I worked hard and aced my final exam? When I wrecked the car and dad was upset, did I still know he was safe? Was dad’s love and authority a safe and warm place for my heart to rest?

Many of us had parents in the home, but their emotional absence or abuse left us feeling like orphans. Walking with God is about embracing a posture of sonship. It is more than loyalty and obedience, it is a heart responding to love, crying out, “Abba Father.” However, if you didn’t learn this growing up, how do you get there?

Daniel LaRusso grew up without a father. High school age, he moved from New Jersey to Los Angeles and promptly found himself being picked on. Enter Mr. Miyagi. He knew how to father, how to believe in someone who doesn’t believe in themselves. He knew how to see potential in Daniel and draw it out of him. Daniel gained the ability to risk because Miyagi gave him the fathering presence that was a sure emotional foundation to risk from. Daniel was able to risk fighting the Cobra Kai martial arts team, facing potential harm, with no guarantee of success. Many of you know this as the Karate Kid story, but the truth is, we all long for a spiritual father to believe in us.

To grow as a son you have to be willing to open your heart to a father. He won’t be perfect, he may not fit your perception of how a father does things, but he’ll change your life if you let him. Mr. Miyagi taught Daniel to be teachable, taught him to work hard and not ask questions. Daniel had to take on the posture of a son if he wanted the inheritance Miyagi offered.

Romans 8:14 says we have to be led (teachable) in order to be sons. Verse 15 says that by being led, the Spirit frees us of the fears that come from living in independence, fear of having to fend for ourselves because we can’t let a father be there for us. God gives us adoption to sonship wherein we cry Abba (Daddy) Father. Hebrews 12:8, 9 says it this way: if we can’t receive correction from Father, we are as illegitimate sons. No father equals no inheritance. Verse 9, If we can receive correction, we LIVE. God’s life flows through us. Back to Romans 8, verse 17 confirms this that when we live led, we get inheritance, we are heirs with Christ. We mature into what God has for us and make a difference in the world in the unique way God created us for.

1 John 4:20 says we don’t have in the spiritual what is not seen in the natural. In other words, if I have a heart of sonship toward God, you will see evidence of that in how I relate to spiritual fathers and authority figures, on earth. It starts with opening my heart, taking on the posture of a son. God has some Cobra Kai for you to fight. Will you take the risk?

Filed Under: Father's Love, Jack Frost, Leadership, Servant-Leadership, sonship Tagged With: , , , , ,

Biblical Attachment

June 3, 2011 By Leave a Comment

By Robert

Many of us have understood grace and the Father’s love, yet we struggle to walk in this daily. We so often get stuck in our fears, worries, frustrations, and irritations. But shining light on God’s heart can help us get moving again. Picture this:

“Daddy!” the little boy says as he runs, smiling, to hug his father returning from work. Both father and son feel joy and connection as they embrace. This “connecting” is attachment, which is simply the capacity for healthy emotional relationships.

The initial parent-child relationship develops our ability for attachment. The infant’s brain receives signals from the nurture of a loving mother – her holding, rocking, soft words, and smiles – and neural connections are made. In this way attachment grows. Attachment is the foundation of emotional health and maturity.

The Gospel
Adam’s fall was about independence and separation from God, the opposite of attachment. “I’ll get the knowledge of good and evil and then I can decide things on my own.” It would not be too much of a stretch to say that independence is at the root of all sin. Think of the younger and older brothers in the story of the Prodigal Son in Luke 15. The younger self medicated, symbolizing, in a nut shell, the sins of the flesh. The older brother tried to strive, perform, and be good enough. There are the Pharisaical-type sins. In either case, both are in independence rather than loving relationship with God. Jealousy, gossip, competition, striving, addiction, most everything traces back to attachment pain.

Let’s Extrapolate
We have much more scientific understanding today of how the brain works in the area of relationship and what emotional health looks like. There can be many good neural connections for attachment or very few. If we combine this with the Biblical truth that we know, what do we get? A new light on the idea that God came to have relationship with us.

Attachment is at the crux of Christianity. God so loved that he gave. Jesus came to give us the ultimate gift of attachment, and then we are to give it away to the world. The more I connect daily with God’s love for me and walk that out in showing kindness to others, the more healthy I become and the more I express the heart of the gospel. But the more I get stuck in negativity, gossip, speaking ill of others, and fears, the more I build wrong structures in the brain and will struggle with being unhealthy emotionally.

Filed Under: Emotional Health, Father's Love, sonship Tagged With: , , ,

Dignity From The Father

December 3, 2010 By 1 Comment

By Robert

Sonship-Themed Movies

Many movies actually display a sonship theme. There’s a part where the hero has reached rock bottom and he is ready to do anything to fight his way out of the pit. I love this! The mentor emerges but will not immediately agree to help. He tests him first. How badly does he want help?Will he really push past the pain? Will he really be teachable enough to do anything instructed? The mentor tests to see if the person will choose to move out of a victim mentality.

God is Not Codependent

In Exodus 15 God tells the Israelites that He will continually keep them cleansed from the diseases of Egypt if they will heed His voice and do what is right. Then, God intervenes right in front of them and cleanses the waters of Marah, demonstrating what He will do in their behalf.

God is demonstrating how He will be a coach, a mentor to them, to help them move from an Egyptian slave mentality, into becoming an army that can fight battles and take the Promised Land. He will mentor, but only as they do their part.

Empowerment

So often we want the magic pill, the quick fix, the right guy with the right anointing to lay hands on us and cast out our problems. However, so frequently God is asking us to grow and mature, to partner with Him, to take responsibility for where we are at and work through it.

This is hugely empowering. As He mentors us like this and we co-laborer with Him, we are no longer victims needing to be rescued. We are becoming sons in the Father’s house that know how to take responsibility, find available resources, and fight battles. We become more than conquerers in Christ!

Filed Under: Uncategorized Tagged With: , ,

A Slave Mentality or Sonship Teachability

November 27, 2010 By 1 Comment

Where the Power Lies

Slave mentality statements say: “I can’t ever make a good grade in that class, the teacher just doesn’t like me.” “That person makes me so mad, how do they not understand the passing lane is for passing?” “My boss makes  me feel hopeless, he has no idea what it takes to do this job!”

What do all these statements have in common?

They declare that the power lies with others and a lack of sonship. Other people have the power to make me fail a class, make me angry, or even to make me feel hopeless. This is an outward locus of control. The location of control, or the power to determine a thing, lies with an another person or circumstance rather than with myself.

These are common struggles that get dealt with in Prayer Ministry and most everyone struggles with these at some level. Almost no one is able to always take initiative, to always take appropriate responsibility for their actions and their circumstances. Generally, the greater the shame base someone grew up with, the more they will struggle with being proactive, taking responsibility and living by core values rather than the opinions of certain others who are seen as the “one’s who really count.”

The Power of Being Teachable

This presents some crucial challenges to growth, especially to our ability to be teachable.

When power lies with others, life has a sense of randomness. We are never entirely sure if we are in or out of favor. To defend against this, we may take on suspicion, prejudice (opinion formed without knowledge or examination of facts), even intolerance, legalism, and control issues. So since the power lies with others, life really is unknown and unpredictable. And if this is true, what other “tools” are available to protect ourselves?

This has huge implications for being able to learn new things and grow. If we have no ability to take responsibility within ourselves, we are unable to learn new revelations and learn from our life experiences. We end up with the good/bad mentality, and acting as God’s policemen. We try and live by formulas rather than principles. There are whole ministries dedicated to pointing out how other ministries are “off.” There are Christians who have been saved for years but never experience any significant growth.

God wants to place tools in our hands as sons to possess our individual promised land. We really can shed these “Israel in the wilderness” mentalities and become sons who can fight successfully in the promised land.

Filed Under: sonship Tagged With: , , , ,

Connection, Identity, and Support

May 1, 2010 By 1 Comment

By Robert

Joe felt so disconnected, always on the outside, at work and school and church. As he was growing up his dad had never been around. There had never really been a man in his life to call forth his identity. Julie felt an almost continual low-level anxiety—constantly afraid things might fall apart. She had a sense of impending doom, a fear of financial disaster, or some grave illness or family crisis. It was so hard to believe God would be available to her.

Eph 3:14-15 (AMP) For this reason I bow my knees before the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, For Whom every family in heaven and on earth is named [that Father from Whom all fatherhood takes its title and derives its name].

Fathering, mothering, and family are all God’s idea and God’s design. Every little boy and little girl needs to know dad and mom love them, and be secure in that love. Children need a sense of connection and identity. They need to know they are supported in all the life skills they must acquire to grow up.

When these foundational elements are missing (connection, identity, and support), wounding often takes place. God’s plan is for a divine exchange to happen, where Christians shift from the family model their parents gave them, to connecting directly with God’s love. We should feel like sons in His family rather than orphans. Most all wounding is based right here in these three elements. Think about it. Any fears I have—anxieties over finances, health, family, destiny—are all rooted in a difficulty believing God will be there for me. It is orphan living.

All healing needs to be based in these three things as well. Finding a connection to God’s love, and having our identity in that rather than performance or independence, is what brings about healing. There is a safe place in His love for both emotional and physical needs.  Just forgiving those who hurt us or trying to get rid of pain should not be the goal. Having intimacy with God, learning to live a connected, Fathered life, daily walking in His love and in sonship, is what He wants for all of us.

Filed Under: Boundaries, Christianity, Counseling, Father's Love, sonship Tagged With: , , , , , ,

Meekness Is the Passkey

February 4, 2010 By 3 Comments

Closed Theological System

One of my main mentors was Jack Frost. When I first came to work with him I had a somewhat closed theological system. I had a set of fixed ideas about God and doctrine and I was not that open to anything that went outside my box. Jack was very different.

Teachable and Diligent

He was first of all teachable. There were certain key books God used in his life that he had read fifteen times or more. Not only was he open to new ideas, he understood what it took to really get a hold of them and incorporate them to where he lived on a daily basis. We give this kind of effort in school to learn new material. A given class might include lectures, a textbook, several other books to read, and a research paper. However, now that we are older, we seem to have the idea that we can read one book just one time and it will change our lives forever.

Willing to Try

The next thing I noticed about Jack was that he was not afraid to try. He would at times make adjustments to his teaching, not always having it perfect from the start, however, the important thing was that he was willing to consider new thoughts and open to try them.

A Personal Example                                                                                                                                                  

About a year ago I found myself really stuck in my walk with the Lord. I heard a minister I respected mention that God has taught the church many things about deliverance and generational sin and some of it actually works. That struck right at one of my theological boxes. Because of ways I have considered the deliverance movement “out of balance,” I had thrown the whole thing out. A short time later I had an opportunity to be ministered to by this same man, and he recommended some deliverance and generational sin stuff I could pray through. I was desperate enough to try it. Guess what? It worked, I found whole new areas of freedom in my life. In the type of prayer ministry that I do, these are still not the primary tools I use, but I have a whole lot more respect for them than I used to.

With a closed theological system there is little possibility for growth.  Meekness really is the passkey.

Filed Under: Christianity, Jack Frost Tagged With: , , , ,

Dynamics of Shame vs Respect

December 30, 2009 By Leave a Comment

Identity in Love

When we lack identity in God’s love we will have fears to deal with since it is love that casts them out. 1 Jn.4:17 Fear leads to control; a lack of vulnerability, having walls up.

“In a shame bound family system there tends to be rigidly defined boundaries. This causes the development of self to get cut off early. Children learn to value defiant individualism over the ongoing dialog of relationship.” (Facing Shame) Most teenage rebellion can be found right here!

Filed Under: Uncategorized Tagged With: , , , , ,

How to Receive Like a Son

October 25, 2009 By Leave a Comment

A Slave Mentality

Many people and ministries are struggling at this time in receiving their needed resources. I believe that for the childlike, the teachable, those who have not grown cynical and critical but can still be in awe of what God can do—fresh, out of the box ideas are coming like never before!

Where to Find Resources

We teach a series called “Living a Fathered Life, Going from Slavery to Sonship.”

Israel in the wilderness had a slavery mentality (no faith to try anything new, always gravitating to the negative, no awe of Father) and so could not enter the promised land. There is no inheritance for slaves.

In Luke15 the older brother complained, “You have never given me anything,” and the father said “Son, you own it all.”  The son was complaining because his father did not give him liquid assets, instant solutions. The father was trying to show him that he had given him so much more than that, something so much higher. So often in our prayers we are asking God for finished products, liquid assets – “God give us the money for this venture”; “God make my business or ministry successful, in Jesus name.”

How Sons Receive

However, God often deals with sons by giving them raw materials. The older brother could go out to the field and choose any goat he wanted, catch it when he wanted, butcher it, cook it, call his friends and have a party—anytime. There was no shortage of resources there, only a shortage of perspective.

Perspective

He could not see liquid assets and so thought he did not have any assets. The father said, “Son, you are a builder, you can put things together, you have been running my whole operation for years. You know how to put together a business plan and implement it. Help yourself, go take the raw materials and do what you want.”

Press In

Why not daily ask God to anoint your eyes, to show you raw materials instead of liquid assets. When I worked with the subsistence farmers of the Dominican Republic, I would continually be amazed at their resourcefulness. One time Tulio and I went up the mountain for some poles to build a back porch. He knew where to look to find just the right trees for the job. He found some vines nearby that he cut for rope. He looked around for what was needed. Here in the US we are addicted to the finished product. We have lost the understanding of how to be a builder like our farmer forefathers had.

Challenge – spend 30 days asking God to show you the raw materials that are already there and to coach you how to pray like a son instead of a slave. Instead of praying, “Give me the finished product,” pray, “God show me how to put together these raw materials in a way I have never seen before.”

(This material comes from Arthur Burk’s new teaching, “Social Entrepreneurs”)

Filed Under: sonship Tagged With: ,

How to Receive Fathers

April 18, 2008 By 1 Comment

 I have had at least three significant spiritual fathers in my life.

Sam Gilpin was the first who led me to the Lord and took me through the 12 steps of Alcoholics Anonymous. This taught me deep things about transparency, surrender and restitution. This started me on a path to healing.

Pastor Steve McCoy was the second. Space does not permit me to share the many ways he has stood with me for 23 years. Certainly the foundation in God’s word that has kept me in the race all these years would be at the top of this list. The message of grace he preaches that has brought much healing was huge. Certainly counsel through all the years was also significant.

Jack Frost and Robert Hartzell togetherThe late Jack Frost was the third who took my healing from such a broken childhood much deeper. Jack taught me the messages of Sonship that I have been sharing. He taught me church etiquette for traveling ministries. Jack taught me how to impart a message of grace to churches with other paradigms for ministry in such a way that it is received. Jack was amazing to me because he had a vision of where the church needed to go to fulfill God’s plan, yet because of his sonship he could bring his message in a way that it would be received rather than being yet another “martyr” who has “revelation that no one else sees” and ends up judging the church for being so lukewarm and deserving of wrath.

These men of God were there for me even though I was not always so sure of that. Not only did I have to work through my abandonment issues, I had to learn how to relate to the spiritual fathers God had placed in my life. I had no example to draw from. I feared my earthly father and there was not anything functional about our relationship. There were times of not asking for help and counsel because, “They don’t have time for me”. There were times of longing for them to meet my needs instead of taking my own proper personal responsibility. Both of these attitudes represent a slave/master mentality. If a slave asks a wrong question he may be hit and yet he does not eat unless this abuser feeds him. We often carry these same dysfunctional patterns over to how we relate to God. When things go our way we are so happy. When things are going wrong we can take it as rejection, thinking, “God doesn’t care for me”.

Hebrews 13:17—Obey those who rule over you, and be submissive, for they watch out for your souls, as those who must give account. Let them do so with joy and not with grief, for that would be unprofitable for you.

When we can learn to walk in healthy submission, to be a blessing rather than place demands, to get under and support the vision of the fathers God has placed in our lives it is very profitable for us, we mature into all that God has for us. It seems weekly we hear of another Christian couple getting divorced or leaving the church offended only to repeat the cycle at the next church. I believe it almost always comes down to the issues I have shared in this message. What if I would have gotten offended and left one of the spiritual fathers I mentioned in this article? Look at the heritage, the growth I would have missed! It is so worth it to work through our “children in the wilderness” mentalities, (as a slave relating to a master) and learn how to receive and relate to the spiritual fathers God places on our lives!

Filed Under: Father's Love, Healings, How to Change, Jack Frost Tagged With: , , ,
« Older Posts