Freedom from Spiritual Slavery and into Sonship

i want to share with you something that's very special to my heart and it really changed my identity and how i saw myself and how i related to god it forever shifted my trajectory and i find that many other people can relate to this as they experience the freedom and how they see themselves and how they relate to god and i pray that this will help you break off the chains of spiritual slavery that could be infecting your life and you be free to enter into what it really means to be a loved son to be a loved daughter and so i'm going to share with you this insight and an aspect of it is found in the book of galatians and i was deeply struck by this word that paul brought out here in relating to god and that was this understanding of abba father and if you've seen any of my teachings you know i'm helping people to understand what it means to relate to abba father this abba speaking of dad or daddy that tender relationship that god wants you to understand through christ and being able to relate to him as a father as a dad and so many of us struggle with this because of our earthly father issues or what we weren't fathered in and we end up living in spiritual slavery and so paul mentions this in the book of romans chapter 8 where he talks about freedom from bondage again to fear and he talks about how we live in the spirit of adoption by which we cry out abba father in galatians here he's saying that this abba father helps you to really understand who you are as sons and it breaks off spiritual slavery jesus himself you see this word abba used a third time in the gospel of mark where jesus says let this cup pass from me but he cries out to abba father and he's able to gain the strength to endure the cross and to be able to go as the bible says to approach it with joy knowing what the father's call was on his life his connection to abba father is what made all the difference and so if jesus was connected to that you and i need to understand this deep connection too but i was fascinated at how the more you grow in understanding who god is as your abba father the more you're able to connect to the power of sonship and paul says because you are sons god sent forth the spirit of his son into your hearts by which you cry out abba father so god is saying i'm setting the standard i'm setting the foundation here you're a son and he is your father and this is going to set the stage of breaking the bondage of spiritual slavery so in the very next verse paul says therefore you are no longer a slave and in the book of galatians what he was doing was helping people to get out of the slavery that they lived in and to enter into sonship and what he found in the people that he was teaching and overseeing was they would slide back into their old ways remember when israel was getting free from egypt and the bondage of slavery and they'd enter out to begin to pursue to walk into the promised land and there were a point in time where they said you know what let's go back let's go back it was easier back there even though it was slavery it was bondage it was trouble it was hardship there's this sense of when we move into the new that we want to go back to the familiar so in the new covenant paul was doing the same thing with the church he was saying listen you guys are wanting to go back to your old ways back to law based living back to the old stuff and that's slavery and i want you to understand you are no longer a slave but you are a son and if you're a son then you're an heir of god speaking of your father god your father he is now your father and you are now a son you no longer need to relate to god as a slave and i believe there is a pandemic problem where christianity is still approaching god as slaves and we're approaching our world as slaves and we're not entering into the sonship through who christ he made it possible we are now joint heirs with christ he is the icon he is the image of the father he is who we look to looking unto jesus the author and finisher of finisher of our faith what's he doing he's leading us to understand the father and for you to take on your new identity as son and when you realize that there is an inheritance that you carry that all that the father has he wants to empower you with so you can live as sons and daughters empowered now when we look at this slavery many times what we first interpret is this is freedom from slavery is freedom from being slaves to sin and slaves to bondage and that's true you're never going to find freedom from sin under the law you're never going to find freedom from sin under trying to perform the freedom from sin is found through the love of god the father shown in jesus christ and through his grace and in relationship god sets you free from the bondage of sin and from the strongholds of the enemy and this is so true and we could spend tons of time just in there but i believe number two the one of the biggest things that paul was doing here was he was setting the church free again from their basis of relating to god under the law or what i often call performance driven christianity pdc and many of you have been infected with pdc and and you need the remedy not of performance but you need the remedy of sonship and how do you learn sunshine how do you get free from the bondage of slavery you learn how to be a loved son of your father in heaven and you learn to receive what jesus christ already paid for you because this is all done in by faith by grace it's how it's all happened right and so paul's going deeper more than just freedom from sin it's freedom from law based living that your basis of relating to god be based on rules only and not true relationship now in no way is paul ever saying that we're changing what's right and what's wrong what's what's evil and that which is good n he's not changing that what he's saying is the foundation of how you relate to god cannot be based on your effort and what you can do to try to sustain it or try to use a sense of laws and unfortunately this has infected us in so many of our ways in how we we check our relationship with god and how we feel close to god it's based on performance and paul's going we got to eliminate that you got to learn to be loved as sons and daughters because out of that your whole life has changed but i also want to give you a third understanding as well too is freedom from what i often call spiritual perfectionism which means there's this driving thing in you and trying to be enough or make it enough or or make things feel enough and there's this standard it's still based on this performance driven thing that you're trying to get to trying to better yourself and it's there's great things that that fuel that but there's a deception underneath that still keeps you in the spiritual slavery to realize this isn't about me trying to get to a perfect place now the new testament uses the word perfect but it's not this without any blemish kind of meaning this perfect speaks of maturity completeness this greater work that god's doing to mature you and builds you up but not the spiritual perfectionism where you're just never enough it's never enough you ever feel like you're just never enough never good enough you just feel this unending standard accusing you that's the enemy accusing you with the law not allowing you to receive your sonship and so what i want to do is i'm going to share with you a whole list of areas that that tell us we're still living in spiritual slavery and we've not entered into sonship and i guarantee you there's a probably about 20 25 of these i'm going to show you that are going to reveal you find yourself in this list and identify these are areas where i need to invite god my father to do a deep area in my heart so i can rest in his sonship in his love for me in the grace and the empowerment that's available for my life so when we contrast spiritual slavery and spiritual sonship the first place we have to look at is identity what's the sense of your identity a slave's mindset is performance a lifestyle that's how you evaluate yourself you evaluate you evaluate your journey based on performance you live out of performance and that is how you live your life and so you're very maybe competitive with other people or you're always beating yourself up and you're you're you're living out of a performance-based evaluation with god whereas identity for sonship it sounds so simple it could pass you by it's an understanding of i'm the father's son or i'm the father's daughter and recognize when i say son i also mean daughters i'm the father son and i rest in that you know what you think i have two children and if you were to ask them how do you be your father's child it's like they might shrug their shoulders and go i just am and so when you enter into sonship you've learned to receive who the father is and his acceptance of you now for a slave their sense of belonging they always feel like an orphan there's just this antsy unrested unsettled they just never feel like they they belong whereas a son has truly come into acceptance i'm accepted in the beloved so how you relate to god and how you relate to other people comes out of this and this is often shows the difference of how we live corporately because spiritual slavery produces an orphanage in spiritual sonship it produces the family of god because that's who god god does not call us an orphanage he calls us a family and he's brought us into the family but notice that's where the battleground lies for us is we struggle to feel that sense of belonging and because of that slaves have to go back to their performance i need to perform in order to belong i've got to prove myself and so the motivating spirituality for a slave is rejection it's a rejection rule which is one of the most deadly deep-rooted things that drives us and keeps us from acceptance whereas a son has received the adoption and you can see that in romans 8 15 where he says you know we have we have not been given a spirit of bondage again to fear we've been given the spirit of adoption by which we cry abba father slaves though are always under the bondage of i've got a fuel i got to prove myself and they're fueled by that whenever i'm in a group i got to prove myself i have no belonging unless i prove it i've got to show up i've got to bring the goods i've got to be somebody so there's this fuel always driving but sons have learned from jesus sons have learned i have nothing to prove if you if you look at the life of christ in every situation there's nothing he had to prove so that pressure was off how did he get that he had the approval of his father this is my beloved son in who i'm well pleased and that's the only voice that mattered the slaves what happens is because of this this bondage they live under everything is self-effort everything is what they can stir up what they can do what they can they're always drained in their energy they're having to exercise so much energy whereas sons flow with the holy spirit in romans 8 for those who are led by the spirit of god they are the sons of god and so there's a flow what does that mean it means that you receive the love of god by faith in his grace and his grace is the empowerment in your life and so you're just led by him there's no pressure there's no pressure in your day-to-day life and day-to-day existence so you don't have to like push this energy to live out this life instead it's a flow and that's where we manifest the fruit of the holy spirit when it comes to love spiritual slaves always feel that they have to live for it they've got to earn it and so therefore they treat other people that way in their relationships you got to earn my love whereas sons they live from love they've learned to receive now if you notice there's going to be a theme in sonship you're going to see over and over again they've learned to receive learn to receive learn to receive and let it flow out a son receives from god and it doesn't stop there oh just give me give me give me give me give me whatever is received flows out so that's why we manifest not just what we want we manifest who we are that's why everything that requires change in our life requires identity change okay and sons they learn to live from love i'm already loved right now i'm already loved so what does my day look like to live from a place where i'm already loved now i'm going to get deeper now we're going to get deeper into the stuff that that kicks up in our lives now slaves and how they relate they have this theme i'm on my own nobody's here to help me nobody's got me i'm doing all on my own so they often have to live solo without input without fathering without mothering without connection to the family they oftentimes give off an air they don't need you there's this hyper indi independence that's unhealthy i mean we need to have a sense of of independence in who we are in a healthy way but in this way it's a it's an isolated kind of thing they might be around people but they're still in isolation that's there whereas sons have this have this internal compass i don't know if you can read that clearly it says my father has my back and that's a saying that i developed over the years especially when i speak to men because there's something in men where we step out we need to know does somebody have my back and for many men they live on this i'm on my own now it's not exclusive to just men because my sister's in christ you can have the same battlegrounds i'm all on my own right and you could look around and you could prove that but people ventured into sonship realize with my father and the host of heaven and the holy spirit at work and jesus working in my heart and he's even interceding for me on my behalf to the father like this this is amazing i'm never alone i'm never alone so sons can live in any environment in any situation and know they're never alone and and this loneliness is creeping up on the body of christ why because of spiritual slavery and god needs to set us free so we know who he is as a father now for spiritual slaves their roles in life so their job their ministry their their leadership involvement being a husband being a wife being a parent those roles completely define them which is a problem because when that role does well or succeeds then you go up with it only for those things to crash then you crash i also find that even when those roles go up and you are successful the identity of a person is still unfulfilled so this is why spiritual slaves are more vulnerable to addictions because they're not filled with the love of the father and their ups and downs of the day never satisfy them they never feel satisfied whereas sons they don't hang their identity on their roles the roles they have in life are extension are an extension of their sonship they're an extension of their sonship so in other words in their marriage they bring a fully loved son or daughter to the marriage in their parenting they bring a fully loved son or daughter to their parenting to their job they bring a fully loved son to their job to their ministry they bring a fully loved son or daughter to their job so when you understand who you are it enhances all the things that you're involved in so therefore you don't have to work at like trying to make all these roles that you have in your life amazing just focus on sonship and how do you grow in sonship learn to be accepted learn to be loved by the father learn to receive what's already there but as you can see the bondage of spiritual slavery is a modern day plague and it's wanting to keep you trapped now from here on out i want you to understand give you a heads up what i'm going to share next is really for the overcomers those who really want to let god heal their heart and set them free and br and bring about some real transformation in their life so just letting you know because we're gonna move into some of the deeper areas okay just recognize what sticks out don't get overwhelmed by the list these are just things to help create discernment and help to enhance your understanding so when it comes to slavery the mindset of protection is we got to protect the image we have to guard how things look so a person who is a spiritual slave they're more concerned about how things look than how they really are which is the integrity sons uh they don't care whether people around or not what people think or don't think when they lay their head to bed at night the integrity of their heart is what matters whereas in slavery we got to protect the image so if it's your family it's more about how your family looks than how your family really is if it's your church it's more about how the church looks and how it really is if it's your business how the business looks than how it really is and so this drives how we deal with issues so if you notice in our society and culture the goal protect the image protect the image and when the image is hurt there's a panic right in sunship we go let's deal with whatever we deal with if there's a problem a scandal an issue going on let's deal with it let's let god do surgery in slavery we just put band-aids on because we just want to keep the image protected when it comes to intimacy sun slaves really struggle they struggle to truly get close they struggle to have intimate relationship because a lot of times there's fear and there's abandonment there there's an abandonment issue so they don't really let you in because they're afraid that you're going to reject them you're going to leave them you're going to see who they really are and you're going to turn away from them so this abandonment drives them to let people in so close whereas sons they've learned to receive they've received the father's love so they realize they're accepted they look at themselves in the mirror and they receive themselves in their journey even in their flaws and struggles they've received themselves and they give it out to other people and they're gracious you want to be around them because there's a graciousness they carry right they're not afraid so much of you hurting them that's not their focus now when it comes to work a slave is under constant pressure if you feel yourself under pressure pressure pressure pressure you're listening to the bondage of slavery and you have a driving force to prove yourself i gotta prove myself everywhere i go whereas a son sees work as an adventure and as a place of discovery meaning all right we're gonna figure this out my father's with me is gonna help me i'm gonna discover more things about myself i'm going to learn i'm just always learning always growing why because there's no pressure and that was a shift in my life in my journey to i just took a stand against all forms of pressure and when i felt it in my body to pause and i say i stand against all forms of pressure because this is not of god i'm not a slave i'm a son and i am more than a conqueror so therefore in every situation i will learn to overcome i will discover who i am discover god this is an adventure so i refuse to see this as a drudgery i want to see this as an adventure this has been game changing for me now when it comes to the blessing of god because there's a blessing available for us in christ jesus sons and daughters of our father in heaven slaves have an unworthiness they feel unlovable they struggle to receive unconditional love in fact they see us too good to be true and so what happens is they don't take the upgrade into sonship because they stay in unworthiness i watched this even in my pastoring work where i would call many of the men in the congregation to a new level of sonship and to break off spiritual slavery and many of them would stay in unworthiness it was it was drudgery it was dark it was sludge but it's what they were used to and many times what they would they would do is they would reject the higher level of what god called them because the higher level is not more striving the higher level is a greater sense of how you see yourself in identity and how god sees you because these sons they just gratefully receive the blessing of god but they understand that it brings them to a new level and you see things differently now whereas staying in unworthiness causes you to stay in the comfort of passivity of a lower level i don't even have to bother stepping out because i don't have to risk anything and and this is a massive place of bondage that keeps people in a spiritual slumber in a place of passivity the lifestyle of a slave is survival every word survival remember we talked about living in an orphanage so you're looking out for yourself you're you're constantly striving and surviving every moment just on edge in a survival mode whereas sons live in the security and rest they live in the rest of god they're not striving because they come into receiving now recognize we're on a journey of moving from this to this so don't look at it so black and white because you're moving from this to to this give yourself room in your journey to recognize these things the potential of a slave it's never enough it's never enough but sons are always empowered in every situation they're always empowered meaning that there's something i can focus on in where i'm at that will move me into a productive place that will increase my faith that will mature me the heart of a slave is always unsettled the heart of a son is fulfilled what in the love of god now when you first meet a spiritual slave they're highly guarded they're very protective you can just see they've got just all this all this hyper vigilant very hyper overprotective way that they approach relationships whereas a son or a daughter there's an openness now they're not backing up the truck like here's all my all my flaws all my struggles no they understand it takes time to build trust to build connection deeper intimacy but there's an openness there's an openness in their journey now i'm going to give you one of the biggest remember i said the deeper i go the more things it's going to bring up one of the greatest signs you can see spiritual slavery at work is when you communicate with spiritual slaves the communication is twisted meaning they don't hear what you're actually saying they have a twisted interpretation of it so they hear the twisted interpretation of it and then they send back to you a response to something that was actually never meant and never said and i discovered this in some of my pastoral work where the more i tried to talk the worse it got if you're trying to get to conflict resolution or heal a subject and the more you talk the worse it gets now the first thing we have to understand is you might be stirring up the pot but if you're coming across with a humble heart trying to bring resolution and you find the more you talk the worse it gets you might be dealing with a spiritual slave and they won't be able to hear what you're saying because they're not reasonable a son or daughter is reasonable meaning that no matter what's going on you can still reason with them even if they're hurting even if they're in pain they want to reason and they respond well to someone who's reasonable meaning that um you're not being attacked you're not being yelled at you're not being just screamed at accused if you come reasonable but i found in situations where servants of god come with a reasonable heart to someone who is bound in spiritual slavery all you do is get kicked back kickback kickback because there isn't a heart that wants healing it just wants to stir the pot and keep strife going and this is very very important in the culture we live in in church in family in neighbors in community in government in politics in every facet of education at your school at your job in all these avenues you need to understand when i communicate with this person do i do i find a place of reasoning or do i find everything gets twisted and distorted and the more we talk the worse things get because the enemy's goal is to use this to generate strife and james says in his writings where there is strife there is every evil thing and so sons know when the twistedness comes up they know this isn't a place that has a redemptive heart this isn't a place where hearts are open because you have to remember when you live in sonship you want true heart to heart you want integrity you want to receive love you want to give it out you want to have the discovery that's available you want to just live in that security and rest and you want to empower others in your conversations you want to provide all these things to other people but spiritual slavery these are the people that split churches these are the people that betray remember they're in survival so they'll say they're with you and then betray you overnight they're the ones that accuse you they're the ones that bring out false witness there's the ones that say things about you that are not accurate why because their communication filter is being clouded by rejection and that's why i teach so much in the rejection mindset because each of us needs to get the twisted communication out of our life we need to learn what is truly being said instead of just giving into the twisted translation of what we think is being said see sons they learn to communicate at a better place where they're hearing better they're not hearing from brokenness they're hearing from a more empowered place whereas slaves always twisting the communication it distorts their world and it distorts their view and so you'll notice relational healing doesn't happen to its fullest extent they stay in that survival mode they stay in that orphan place and resolution maturity never takes place and the brokenness never gets healed it just stays in cycles over and over again all these areas that i'm discussing are areas where i've had to work through in my own life and encourage other people to walk through in their journey no matter where you come from what you've been through we've got to get free from these chains that keep us in spiritual slavery now when it comes to getting triggered were spiritual slaves easily triggered by envy what's envy it's a it's a bitter seething anger and even jealousy over what we think someone else has over what we think that they are what they've been given and so we're always living life from a perspective of deficit whereas sons and daughters are all just grateful they live in gratitude and they receive and they recognize we've all been given an opportunity to be heirs with christ to the father and we all get to participate in that inheritance and just grateful from it instead spiritual slaves are always looking out for themselves whereas sons and daughters they're looking out for family they look out for the family of god they have eyes that look out because of the love that they carry the religion of spiritual slaves is always law always performance driven whereas the religion of sons and daughters is grace and what is grace it's the divine power and energy of god working in and through your heart so you learn to say yes to his way of thinking he empowers you to live it out whereas this the weights all on you the pressure is all on you and you always find yourself failing always find yourself left empty the yoke of sonship is always learning jesus said my come and learn for me my yoke is easy my yoke is light we're slaves and live under the yoke of pressure and paul says you don't have to live under that anymore you don't have to live under that so the leading style of spiritual slaves is they're often very controlling and they're often hoarding what do i mean by that they're always collecting an audience always bringing in people to themselves always even when people are raised up they want to keep them in their church and their business and their thing in their community because they're building themselves up whereas a leading style of sons is relationship always always relationship always seeking to build relationship it's always empowering where everybody feels empowered in their identity empowered in their journey there's a fathering atmosphere because eventually as you grow in sonship god gives you opportunity to father others now many people say why i'm a spiritual father but yet they're still a slave and they're fathering others quote unquote through spiritual slavery and it's just reproducing more and more slaves a son never has to tell i'm a spiritual father they just live as sons and they let god reveal opportunities to father heart in romans chapter 8 so much of it talks about the hardship the suffering that we'll go through and the things that we face in our life the suffering the hardship the trials that come to spiritual slaves it increases victimhood it increases a victim mentality we blame we look at our circumstances we get angry with god if i had a better setup my life would be better they see themselves as imprisoned they see themselves as defined by their limitations the the key of romans 8 says that hardship brings out the glory of sonship means there is an increase in your ability to relate to the father and grow in the confidence of who you are as sons and daughters the trials you face are actually meant to bring out the glory of who god is as your father who jesus is as your lord the empowerment of the holy spirit and your identity as a loved son that's what the trials are meant and if you if that ring bears witness with you go to romans 8 read through it start from the beginning from the no condemnation to in christ then he goes into identity or the sons of god no spirit of bondage again to fear and then he talks about nor height nor death nor anything shall separate us from the love of god he says i believe that the sufferings will not compare to the glory which is revealed in us what's the glory all of creation and groanings waiting for the manifestation of the fullness of who we are as sons and daughters of god isn't that amazing but beware of hardship increasing your victimhood i deal with heart healing emotional issues on you know all the time this is in my calling and i'm very concerned about how the victimhood mindset traps us and i'm i'm an expert on it because i lived in it and it defined me and it held me back and once i saw the victim mindset and self-pity and how it was keeping me imprisoned i was able to break the shackles of spiritual slavery and move more into sonship now here's where the rubber meets the road it has to do with correction a spiritual slave rebels against correction and will often push back from any authority influence in their life so therefore they're not teachable they become a standard to themselves and they won't allow the fruitfulness of correction now many times people have been abused by correction and so that needs to be healed but sons true sons they welcome healthy correction now it doesn't mean that a son listens to what everybody has to say and any correction that comes their way they say yes oh everybody just tell me what i need to do and what i need to change no no jesus got that you got all kinds of people correcting them what we're talking about here is when you develop true relationship with people and there's words of course correction now this has to be done well sometimes we're terrible not sometimes a lot of times we're terrible at correcting each other when it's done well with love and with grace a true heart of a son might say man that stings a bit but i receive that and oftentimes it starts in your marriage are you able to receive a corrective word from your spouse now i know they need to do it lovingly many times that's where it starts at your work are you able to receive teaching instruction correction from your overseer are you able to receive correction from your small group leader or someone who's placing an authority in your life because that's where sonship really comes out is in correction as in hardship overall the building up of spiritual slavery is just going to increase fear increase fear increase fear and we live in a day and age where fear is abounding and increasing in the lives of people like never before but true sons they're always building faith always building the work of faith in their life and they know faith works through hope but it's a substance of things hoped for so faith takes hope and acts on it and so sons are always letting their hope be built on the love which god has for them i talk about faith hope and love and how they relate so i want to ask you in all of these where do you find that you need to move from spiritual slavery into sonship where do you need to move out of this place of bondage and a place of freedom that god has for you if you want to take the next step i encourage you get a copy of exposing the rejection mindset because this will help you go next level in breaking off these shackles you don't have to be limited by where you're at you can actually be empowered to rise up and to overcome and be what the bible calls more than a conqueror meaning not only do you overcome you take territory and you begin to establish your sonship one step at a time i want you to be empowered in love and grace and in truth and i look forward to seeing you in future resources god bless you

Channel: Mark DeJesus

Views: 3,983

Rating: 4.9812207 out of 5

Keywords: Identity, Identity in Christ, Spiritual Slavery, Sonship

Id: sM8w8kaAG1k

Length: 35min 56sec (2156 seconds)

Published: Mon Nov 23 2020