In this piece, I want to share with us on the subject matter of SONSHIP. One of the reasons why many of us as God’s children aren’t taking our rightful place in our dominion mandate is simply because many of us have not fully understood our SONSHIP yet. It appears that we have the potential to do so much for God, but we are doing so little because we don’t know the magnitude of what God has trapped inside of us. SONSHIP in the kingdom of God, is not limited to the male gender alone; lest women start feeling unwelcomed or irrelevant. Sonship in the kingdom of God is a generic term used for both genders to refer to those that the Spirit of God have adopted.

 

If you read Romans 8:14-17, it says: “For as many as are led by the Spirit of God, these are sons of God…” As many in this context is not limited to the male gender alone, it includes both the male and the female gender and it is obvious that Paul would not be writing to the male gender alone knowing fully well that Christ came to die for all. ¹⁵ For you did not receive the spirit of bondage again to fear, but you received the Spirit of adoption by whom we cry out, “Abba, Father.”

 

The word ADOPTION actually talks about the action or fact of legally taking another's child and bringing it up as one's own, or the fact of being adopted. Somebody may be wondering: if God created us, then we should belong to Him. Why did He then have to adopt us? The answer is because when He created the first man, Adam, and Eve his wife, the two actually rejected God at some point and sold us out to the devil. So, we became the children of the devil. So, God had to take us back from the devil again by spiritually and legally adopting us as His children.

 

¹⁶ The Spirit Himself bears witness with our spirit that we are children of God, ¹⁷ and if children, then heirs—heirs of God and joint heirs with Christ, if indeed we suffer with Him, that we may also be glorified together.”

 

Also, in Galatians 4:4-7, the Bible says: “But when the fullness of the time had come, God sent forth His Son, born of a woman, born under the law, ⁵ to redeem those who were under the law, that we might receive the adoption as sons. ⁶ And because you are sons, God has sent forth the Spirit of His Son into your hearts, crying out, Abba, Father!” ⁷ Therefore you are no longer a slave but a son, and if a son, then an heir of God through Christ.” Here, Paul was saying the same thing albeit, in another light. Everyone who have come to God through faith in Christ Jesus have become the son of God, gender notwithstanding.

 

Ephesians 1:3-6 says:

 

“Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places in Christ, ⁴ just as He chose us in Him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and without blame before Him in love, ⁵ having predestined us to adoption as sons by Jesus Christ to Himself, according to the good pleasure of His will, ⁶ to the praise of the glory of His grace, by which He made us accepted in the Beloved.”

 

IMPLICATION

 

There are five basic things that are associated with our SONSHIP and unfortunately, many believers have not fully understood the implications of these things. These five things are: Position, Privilege, Power, Responsibility, and Assurance

 

POSITION: the word ‘position’ talks about placement, it talks about where one belongs in the scheme of things, it talks about official rank or status, it talks about a situation that confers advantage or preference. Our SONSHIP places us in the same position that Christ is in God. Ephesians 2:4-7 says:

 

“But God, who is rich in mercy, because of His great love with which He loved us, ⁵ even when we were dead in trespasses (He did not leave us in that state because He loved us), made us alive together with Christ (by grace you have been saved), ⁶ and raised us up together, and made us sit together (not apart, not somewhere far away) in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, ⁷ that in the ages to come He might show the exceeding riches of His grace in His kindness toward us in Christ Jesus.”

 

Galatians 3:26-29, the Bible says: “For you are all sons of God through faith in Christ Jesus. ²⁷ For as many of you as were baptized into Christ have put on Christ. ²⁸ There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is neither male nor female; for you are all one in Christ Jesus. ²⁹ And if you are Christ’s, then you are Abraham’s seed, and heirs according to the promise.” The apostle Paul wrote in this place that we all are sons of God through faith in Christ Jesus. I believe he was not only talking to male children alone in this letter to Galatia. He said further with clarity: “there is neither male nor female; for you are all one in Christ Jesus…”

 

If we don’t know our position in God as sons, the devil is going to make a mess of our dominion on the face of the earth. If you don’t know your true position as the son of your earthly father, then outsiders would rob you of your rights and privileges. If we don’t know our positioning in God, it then gives room for the devil to suggest what it is not to us. Genesis 3:1-4 shows us something fundamental about this. It says:

 

“Now the serpent was more cunning than any beast of the field which the Lord God had made. And he said to the woman, “Has God indeed said, ‘You shall not eat of every tree of the garden’?” ² And the woman said to the serpent, “We may eat the fruit of the trees of the garden; ³ but of the fruit of the tree which is in the midst of the garden, God has said, ‘You shall not eat it, nor shall you touch it, lest you die.’ ” ⁴ Then the serpent said to the woman, “You will not surely die. ⁵ For God knows that in the day you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.”

 

Satan deceived Eve to believe she would be like God if she eat of the fruit of the forbidden tree. But the truth is: ISN’T SHE God on two legs in the first place? But because Eve didn’t understand her positioning in God fully well, she allowed Satan to deceive her into what it is not. So, understanding our position in God is the first implication of our sonship.

 

PRIVILEGE: Our SONSHIP confers on us certain privileges that ordinarily, we cannot enjoy if we aren’t sons of God. Some of the privileges we enjoy through our sonship are as follows:

 

(1) We know the will of God for us in Christ Jesus. 1 Corinthians 2:9-12 says:

 

“But as it is written: “Eye has not seen, nor ear heard, Nor have entered into the heart of man The things which God has prepared for those who love Him.” ¹⁰ But God has revealed them to us through His Spirit. For the Spirit searches all things, yes, the deep things of God. ¹¹ For what man knows the things of a man except the spirit of the man which is in him? Even so no one knows the things of God except the Spirit of God. ¹² Now we have received, not the spirit of the world, but the Spirit who is from God, that we might know the things that have been freely given to us by God.”

 

(2) We have Fellowship with Him. 1 John 1:1-4 says:

 

“That which was from the beginning, which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we have looked upon, and our hands have handled, concerning the Word of life— ² the life was manifested, and we have seen, and bear witness, and declare to you that eternal life which was with the Father and was manifested to us— ³ that which we have seen and heard we declare to you, that you also may have fellowship with us; and truly our fellowship is with the Father and with His Son Jesus Christ. ⁴ And these things we write to you that your joy may be full.”

 

(3) We have God as our Father. Those who aren’t sons cannot call God their Father. 1 John 3:1-3 says:

 

“Behold what manner of love the Father has bestowed on us, that we should be called children of God! Therefore, the world does not know us, because it did not know Him. ² Beloved, now we are children of God; and it has not yet been revealed what we shall be, but we know that when He is revealed, we shall be like Him, for we shall see Him as He is. ³ And everyone who has this hope in Him purifies himself, just as He is pure.”

 

POWER: Our sonship confers on us POWER. John 1:11-13 (KJV) says: “He came to His own, and His own received Him not. But as many as received him, to them gave he power to become the sons of God, even to them that believe on his name: ¹³ Which were born, not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God.” There is a level of power that comes with being sons of God – POWER TO LIVE ABOVE SIN, POWER TO LIVE ABOVE SATAN AND HIS DEMONS, POWER TO THREAD UPON SERPENTS AND SCORPIONS AND EVERY POWER OF THE ENEMIES, ET CETERA.

 

RESPONSIBILITY: With sonship also comes responsibility. The reason why a whole lot of God’s children aren’t maximizing their dominion mandate to the fullest, I believe, is because they avoid responsibilities. The ultimate test of sonship is responsibility. Your sonship isn’t complete until you take the father’s responsibility and place it on your shoulders. Jesus said to His parents in Luke 2:49; “don’t you know I must be about my father’s business?” Ephesians 2:10 says: “For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand that we should walk in them.”

 

Examples: God created Adam and He gave a him a responsibility to “tend and keep the garden.” Jesus took upon Himself the responsibility of dying and redeeming the whole world back unto God. All the disciples of Christ Jesus were also called to fish for men. These are proofs that you cannot be called a son of God and you are shying away from kingdom responsibilities. How do we know those who are truly the sons of God? We simply know by the number of responsibilities that they are shouldering in the kingdom of God their father.

 

ASSURANCE: as sons of God, we have this assurance that God is always for us and not against Him. Paul said: “if God be for us who can be against us?” We have this assurance that our inheritance as sons is protected and secured in Him. In Acts 20:32, Paul said: “So now, brethren, I commend you to God and to the word of His grace, which is able to build you up and give you an inheritance among all those who are sanctified.” We also have assurance of eternal life and that God hears us. 1 John 5:13-15 and 20 says:

 

“These things I have written to you who believe in the name of the Son of God, that you may know that you have eternal life, and that you may continue to believe in the name of the Son of God. ¹⁴ Now this is the confidence that we have in Him, that if we ask anything according to His will, He hears us. ¹⁵ And if we know that He hears us, whatever we ask, we know that we have the petitions that we have asked of Him. ²⁰ And we know that the Son of God has come and has given us an understanding, that we may know Him who is true; and we are in Him who is true, in His Son Jesus Christ. This is the true God and eternal life.”

 

Understanding our SONSHIP status is the gateway into enjoying our dominion mandate in God. If we have not been dominating in the order of God, the challenge is not with God or from God, the challenge is with our lack of understanding of who we truly are in Christ Jesus. I pray that God would give us understanding in Jesus’ name.

 

Amen!

Thanks for the gift of your time, I am Obayomi Abiola Benjamin!

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