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The Child Is Not The Father
By John R. Gavazzoni
The Spirit of Truth does, from time to time, bring to the fore certain truth-issues in His ministry of restoring to the saints the Son of God's faith and knowledge of His and our Father-God. One would have to be observationally very dull to not realize that He goes about His ministry with great patience, "precept upon precept; line upon line; here a little; there a little," until we all come to the measure of the fullness of the stature of Christ, unto a perfect, complete man, unto a perfect, complete mankind. [note: He does that by the faith and knowledge OF the Son of God, i.e., the Son of God's faith and knowledge, not by OUR faith in, nor OUR knowledge of, Him]
Not so long ago, the matter of our (true) identity in Christ became very evidently of particular concern to the Spirit of Truth. Many of God's people were awakened to the realization that to settle merely on an identity of "only a sinner saved by grace," fell short of how God knows us to be, of what is our identity in, and in accordance with, His mind, His identity-valuation. "Behold what manner of love the Father has bestowed on us that we should be called the children of God, and indeed we are." Oh, the wondrous vistas of true relationship, of true identity is opened to us by that primal statement of the apostle John.
Almost instantly, when one enjoys such an awakening, that one's understanding of what is being revealed....normatively, revelation should lead to understanding....suffers from the revelation being filtered through the soul's existential/creaturely inadequacies of reception. In short, between receiving revelation as a child of God, and having that revelation meaningfully translated into one's creaturely existence, there is, so to speak, a lot of soul-static that interferes in the transmission. The process from revelation to understanding requires that the soul be healed of what is its particular inadequacy relative to what the Spirit is presently revealing. What one receives as a child of God, must be translated meaningfully to his/her creaturehood. In a word, "the natural man (the man without the Spirit), receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness unto him; neither can he know them, for they are spiritually discerned."
One of the primary characteristics of the un-whole, dis-eased, falling-short-of-the-glory-of-God condition of the soul is that of insecurity. I mean, that's really fundamental to our lostness. No matter how we try to disguise that insecurity by outward, vain, preening and prancing, we suffer from deep, suppressed insecurity. To be healed of that insecurity of soul is inherent in the experience of being made whole, which is salvation. To be saved, to be made whole, includes being made secure, as in to "...know and believe the love that God has for us," which is the foundation of true spiritual identity.
So, as the Spirit begins His work of revealing to us our true identity in union with His Son - a revelation, leading to a full assurance of understanding - a battle ensues. The soul's way of dealing with its insecurity in the face of revelation that ultimately leads to total security, is to claim for itself things that belong to God alone, to God as the Source of our true identity, to who we really are, on the way to that day when, "we shall know as we are known." That's where a crisis emerges, which amounts to the child, in effect, making claims for itself as if it were the father.
The Child Is Not The Father. This kind of (most often) subconscious insecurity of the soul, leads to trying to make up for its inadequacies in processing revelation to understanding, is to claim, as the child, that which only belongs to the father. Not long ago, a very glaring example of this syndrome was found by some teaching, for instance, in the name of acclaiming our true identity, that we are love. That sounds good to the spiritually-immature ear, but it's simply not true. It seems to be true since we are the children of God who is love, so wouldn't that make us love?
No!!! God is love. You aren't. We aren't. Don't confuse the Source with what the Source bestows. The Child Is Not The Father. God is love, He and He alone. We are beloved. "Beloved, now are we the children of God, and it does not yet appear what we shall be; but when He (the Son of the Father's love) shall appear like Him, for we shall see Him as He is." We shall see Him as He is, beloved of the Father." We shall be like the Son beloved of the Father, who alone, IS love. We ought not to make claims of identity that not even our Lord Jesus did not make. He never said, "I am love." He is God's beloved Son: "This is my beloved Son in whom I am well-pleased." "This is my beloved Son, hear ye Him." "The Father has life in Himself, and gives (the Greek verb conveys a continuing action) the Son to have life in Himself."
In that life given to the Son by the Father, by which the Son has life in Himself, is the Father's love. The Father can rightfully affirm that He is love, but even "the Son of His love," did not claim to be that love. This is a serious matter, brethren. The child should not claim for himself that which only belongs to the father. The Child Is Not The Father. The Father is the Source of the Son, as Jesus affirmed when He said, "the Father is greater than I." The Father is greater than the Son as the Son's Source. The Son is begotten of the Father. To be truly Christ-centered, is to be centered in the One in whom Christ, the Son is centered....the "Father, who is above all, through all, and in all."
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