We need to recognize that the security that we’re so desperately searching for is the holding power of a Father, who we can count on for the support we need to grow up. I have found that God holds on to us. There is a difference between us trying to hold on to Him in our own strength verses seeking Him with great passion because of His friendship and experiencing His holding power. The understanding of God’s ways in us should be always changing. There is a root in us that has to grow deep in Him, so we can become confident and know what an intimate relationship with Him is all about. As this root grows, it stabilizes our lives as we learn about a Fathers love that can only be understood through a life of living experiences with Him.

In Ecclesiastics 11:9 King Solomon states that, “we should rejoice in our age of adolescence, and let our heart cheer us in the days of our full grown youth and walk in the ways of our heart and in the sight of our eyes and know that for all these things God will bring us into judgment. ” This verse gives us such a marvelous example of security. Let me put this verse in simple terms so we can define and see what type of commitment we can have in Him.

This word adolescence in the King James Bible is the word young man. In the Hebrew its bachuwr meaning, chosen, to try, choose or choice. Webster’s Dictionary defines adolescence as approaching maturity and being in the age of puberty. We will compare our spiritual growth to our physical growth in our teenage years. For those of us who have gone through our teen-age years, we should remember all the new emotional and physical senses we were beginning to feel and for some of us if not all of us, how traumatic it was, to whatever degree. Now I know that we are supposed to be talking about being a father in our maturity in the Lord. Being and having a fathers vision is being able to define our growing stages of how God our Father is growing us up and showing us our a track record of experiences with Him. Only time, patience, and a hunger for God brings this about. There is no prayer for instant fatherhood only a total commitment and a hunger after Him.

This scripture tells us that we can enjoy our adolescent years, as we are becoming mature as our security grows, and as we learn about the gifts and talents, that God has given us. There is a vision and hope and purpose that becomes alive in us as God shows us the great and wonderful things He gave to us as our inheritance, the day we made Jesus the Savior of our lives. There are many in the body of Christ that have made Jesus their Savior but have never made Him Lord over their lives.

Young adolescence years are the time of learning about making our own choices with out being coerced or brought under control by force or fear. This scripture goes on to say that as you begin to experience your young independent stage phase, your heart will cheer you. The word heart in the Hebrew is leb: meaning your, intellect, will and emotions.

Searching for a higher wisdom is a critical ingredient that we must have if we are to mature in Christ. Without it, there can be no total maturity. The word cheer is yatab: meaning many things but primarily you will be sound minded and have an assurance and contentment within of your ability in knowing God’s plan of how to walk in the Spirit. It then says that we are to walk in the ways of our heart.

We need to realize that we cannot walk in a condition that we are not skilled in. It is only by us being willing to participate with The Holy Spirit that, we will come to understand what a privilege it is to be God’s children. The word walk is halak: meaning being obedient, able to converse or communicate, and be able to walk or run depending on the need. This word walk is a verb or an action word of motion and of us being obedient to the calling of God on our life. It is a calling on what God says is true for our life, not what other people think we were called to do. This statement is really, what being independent is all about. We will define this more as we go on.

This verse also says that, besides walking in the ways of our heart, we need to also walk in the sight of our eyes. The word sight in the Hebrew is mar’eh: meaning a vision to surely see and to be advised. The word eye in the Hebrew is ayin: meaning, a fountain or the origin of where everything comes from. It also represents of how we’re supposed to see and that is with a humble spirit. To put that all together it reads.

Scripture tells us that when we see Jesus when we get to heaven we will know Him. that happens because; we are hanging out with Him now while we are temporarily on the earth. To me this makes it so clear when Jesus said in John 15:5 “I am the vine and you are the branches. If you live and stay in a tight relationship with me, your life will be as productive as I always intended it to be. But without you walking in this relationship with Me, you won’t be able to do anything.”

This verse ends up saying that as we are functioning in this mode of living, only God will be the judge of the steps and progress that we are making. I dislike regressing and correcting some of the condemning teachings I have heard over the years. I love to talk about the loving good news of the Gospel. But it does not mean that God’s type of judging is Him grilling us to make sure in our growing pains that, we have dotted all the I’s and crossed all of our T”s. God as I have said many times is not in the revenge business as a Father. His judgments are His careful eye on His children directing our path as we are growing up. Remember the Holy Spirit is a comforter and a Gentle teacher. He is a visionary who shows us God’s intentions for our lives. If you don’t know this God that I am talking about, you have been deceived.

In our main text 1John 2:13 it states that, children have just for the first time come to recognize that they can have a father and son relationship between each other. I want to remind ourselves that as we grow up in the Lord, we must come to thoroughly grasp with our spiritual minds how we are to interact with our Heavenly Father. As a child, we come into the awareness that there is an entity called a father. We said this is the beginning of all growth, which is the first awareness of God being a Father to us. This spiritual perception that we must have secures and anchors us in the life of the Spirit. It goes on to say that as we go through stages of our growth that, we are not only beginning to recognize Him as we did in our child stage but, now we are getting a track record through experiences that we our having with Him. We are getting a greater understand of a God who has existed from the beginning and an understanding of all that this verse talks about.

This word recognize in the King James is known which is ginosko: meaning, having an assurance and able to speak because you have personal experiences through life that you can talk about with others because, of all the encounters and things God has done for you.

I can remember just being saved about two months and the men of the church that I attended were going to a camp that the church owned to cut trees and clean up the grounds because they were going to have a family camp meeting in a few weeks. Well being a new babe in the Lord, I had no idea yet what I was saved into. It was so new and wonderful that my ears and eyes were wide open and I was like a detective asking questions and listing to every bodies experiences that they had in their lives with the Lord.

I was fortunate to be attending a church where they had some wonderful people who had been saved forty years or more. The camp was a three-hour drive. I was sitting in the front seat and in the back seat were three men and one was an older man who had been saved some fifty years. Well all the way out, all we talked about was his experiences that he had in his life with God. I sat there spell bound and in awe. It was giving me an initiation and an eye opener to what God was going to do for me because he said that God was not a respecter of persons.

When we finally got to the camp and getting out of the car, I asked him one question. I didn’t realize at the time how prophetic the answer was and how it put a stake of security in my heart. I said, “How did God do all those things for you” The answer was, “I let Him” What we had here was a man who had the characteristics of a father in the Lord. You don’t have to have some great calling to become a father.

Let’s talk about the attitudes that will begin to manifest in our lives as we begin to become adults. Even though I talked about this a bit earlier, let’s anchor some of the statements that I have made. Now what I will attempt to share are characteristics that go with adult maturity in the Lord. You might say these are some of the characteristics of a person learning how to be a father Christian. In order to start functioning in these characteristics you must be in the young man or woman stage of growth and have an intense passion and total commitment to Christ. Let me remind you that, if we are co-dependent and living in denial or lying to ourselves, there is no way we can function in the truth.

We said that being in this condition there could be no deep-rooted stable relationships with God or with each other. That’s why the scripture tells us that liars can have no part of the kingdom meaning, they cannot participate and function in the inheritance that God gave them the day they were saved. There is no way to be rooted in any relationship if it is built on lies or anything contrary to the truth. I am reminding ourselves so we see the consistency and continuity again of these three stages that we have been talking about. You can’t jump from dysfunctionalism to fatherhood in one step. It’s impossible. We are to run our race of Christianity as the Holy Spirit prescribes it. Therefore, these characteristics can only be observed and understood if we are at a place to receive them and are able to comprehend their meaning. Life consistency and total commitment is the only way.

In 1Corinthians chapter 12, Paul the apostle talks about the body of Christ and the many gifts given to His body for different uses. There is a whole message on body ministry here alone, but lets continue with the theme of this article.

Paul states, if you are a born again believer then, you collectively are a member of Christ’s body and each a part individually and clearly standing apart with his or her own place and function.” There needs to be a lot of prayer and brokenness in the family of God that must take place for this verse to be able to function in the power of the Holy Spirit in our lifetime. Sometimes when I see the great need for maturity in myself and others, the only thing that lifts the burden in me is pure worship and a thankful to God and abandonment on His mercy and grace. Unless we allow God to build His house we will forever be building in unproductive uselessness.

Unless we grow to the point of each of us knowing our gifts and God’s purpose and place that we hold in the family, there will never be inter-dependent relationship type growth as God intended. God never intended for His kids to be blind followers to the point of putting any teacher or leader in the place of interpreting the word of God for any of us. Let me give a simple example of this in my own life and I could give hundreds. God sent a man into my life almost forty years ago when I was in the bar and restaurant business with my father. During the lunch hour, he came into the restaurant and after he ordered his lunch he asked me straight out if, I had ever accepted Jesus into my heart. My answer to him was “I am a Catholic.” He said “I don’t care what denomination you belong to” and he repeated, “Have you ever accepted Jesus into you heart.” My answer was “I only believe what I hear from the pulpit on Sunday and if it was good enough for my grandfather and my father its good enough for me.”

His answer was. “When you get your paycheck at the end of the week do you give it to someone else and trust them to pay your bills and give you spending money.” I said, “What are you nuts.” Then he said “isn’t it more important that you guard your soul so that you don’t get robbed of eternity if, what you might be hearing is false doctrine.” That made a lot of sense and it built in me a foundation to this day that to grow you have to have personal revelation from God through the Holy Spirit daily.

Unless we have grown into this young stage of having this type of independents, there is no power to overcome the Devils devices. We end up being the type of followers described in Ephesians 4:14 when it says that, “we should no longer be children tossed like ships to and fro between chance gusts of teaching and wavering with every changing wind of doctrine, becoming a victim of the cunning and cleverness of unscrupulous men in a shifty form of trickery in inventing errors to mislead.” You might have the most loving Pastor or Teacher in the world however; it is not their responsibility to interpret scripture for you. We must get to be people who are praying and growing in our relationship through getting personal discernment from God on our own.

You will find, as you become this young adult going into fatherhood the word of God in you will confirm within yourself if what you are hearing is the Holy Spirit or the words of man.

There is no way we will know our individuality and the importance of how we fit into the body of Christ if we do not have a overwhelming awareness of our distinct individuality and difference from our other brothers and sisters in Christ. This takes a commitment and a discipline of seeking God with everything you have. Once you see this, it’s only then that, you can function as a strong link and have father characteristics of inter-dependent relationships with each other. This meaning that, you are no longer threatened and the sibling rivalry and discrimination ends between believers.

You can see here how this strong link between our relationship with God has to filter down to our human level of interaction between earthly fathers and their children. It’s the people sitting in the pews Sunday after Sunday that are the ones God has called to go out into the market places of life and minister the power and the love of Jesus Christ. Unless we allow Jesus to be the sovereign Head of His body, we will have these thousands of doctrines being preached and man continuing to make God into their image, following denominational teachings. This is a biblical principal that has to take place in all denominations wherever. There are as many churches as bars on the highways and byways of the world. Just because we have a cross on the building, it doesn’t mean a thing. It’s what’s going on inside our hearts that God is concerned about, Not the outward appearance of things.

I hear repeatedly. Phil we have to love one another. That’s true and the whole message of the word of God. That’s what God is trying to help us see but, not at the expense or priority of false foundations of doctrines being laid. Only where there is truth can there be real God love and freedom between Him and each other. Ephesians 4:15 tells us that we are to speak the truth only in love and then we can grow up and make Jesus the Head of the church. Mutual admiration societies and denominational clicks will only end by themselves when, we grow up and start becoming fathers. There are no short cuts in growing up.

Let’s now talk about another characteristic that we begin to become secure in as we become fathers. In Hebrews chapter 10:12-19 it says “Jesus offered Himself once as a sacrifice for our sin or our good and now sits in heaven at the right hand of the Father until His enemies are made a footstool beneath His feet. By this one single act He cleansed and perfected those who are set apart and made Godly pure. Now the Holy Spirit confirms this to us daily as we are having fellowship with Him. Now what He is confirming in us is this.

Unless we’re living in a relationship with the Holy Spirit and He is confirming to us daily the understanding of this verse and how God loves and feels about us, these scriptures will have no meaning and effect in our lives. This covenant that this scripture is talking about is the,

It’s this understanding of a persons eternal security in Christ that anchors our soul. It disturbs me again to regress and talk about one of the most disturbing and damaging doctrines within the Christian community. In many circles within the Christian community, eternal security is a dirty word. I have heard that those who preach this give people a license to sin. This is untrue and to hear this is nothing new. It’s been going on since the bible was first written.

In Romans 5: and 6: Paul the Apostle states that where sin came into the world through Adams disobedience, grace came into the world through what Jesus did by dying on the cross. He says, “Where sin is at work in our lives or where we are missing and falling short of receiving our inheritance from God, His grace increases and His unmerited favor and forgiving nature continues to cleans and encourage us in our endeavor to walk in obedience to His will.” Paul was trying to reach these people and explain this principle so they could grow up to be become fathers. They interpreted him as saying, ““Well if we receive more grace when we sin, we had better sin more so we can receive more of God’s grace.” Paul’s answer was, “God forbid that we do this.” Why did these people say this? Paul was trying to tell them how secure they were in Christ and they did not understand because, they were still babies in their understanding of the love of the Lord. There are far too many Christians in this childish mentality within the Christian community that are still being taught with great vigor and with flat out ignorance and high mindedness that, God only loves us on conditions.

These are what the bible talks about as being legalistic or law people. They put stipulation and conditions on people to measure up in one manner or another. There is much to say about this. What we need to start understanding is that, as we grow in the Lord we should be constantly be delivered from this law mentality. IF THIS IS NOT BEING ACCOMPLISHED IN OUR LIVES, WE WILL STAY CHILDREN AND NEVER BE ANCHORED IN OUR RELATIONSHIP WITH GOD OUR FATHER.

When we live in this law mentality, it stops us from experiencing what a loving act in the Holy Spirit is all about. We have this false security in our makeup that says we need to do more or try to sacrifice ourselves in some way and then we will be more acceptable to God and others. It causes us to think we are walking in obedience to God’s commands, but what we are really doing are sacrifices and functioning in the flesh and religious observances. Only love acts bring healthy relationships. It makes you understand why there are so many walls between family members and denominations today.

Life is only worth the living when, we allow the Holy Spirit to reveal to us His way of thinking and the freedom He gives us to explore our relationship with Him our relationship with Him. What a matchless wonder it is to understand how God made us to forever be in His presence and as we learn how totally accepted we are by Him.

Now this brings us to the next characteristic found in Romans 13:8-14 it says, “Owe no man anything but to love one another. For he that loves another has fulfilled the law. The law and the commandments state that, you should not commit adultery, not kill, not steal or covet or think evil against anyone and every other commandment. This is all summed up into one commandment and that is, we should love our neighbor as we love ourselves. Love does no wrong to ones neighbor and it never hurts anyone. Therefore, it meets and fulfills all the laws. We should be a lot more grown up then the day we were saved. It’s time to wake up from our sleep and get real. The night is far-gone and it’s daytime, so stop living in denial and put on God’s armor of light. Stop your quarreling and jealousies. Clothe yourself in the Lord and put away your fleshly cravings.” For he that loves another has fulfilled the law. The law and the commandments state that, you should not commit adultery, not kill, not steal or covet or think evil against anyone and every other commandment. This is all summed up into one commandment and that is, we should love our neighbor as we love ourselves. Love does no wrong to ones neighbor and it never hurts anyone. Therefore, it meets and fulfills all the laws. We should be a lot more grown up then the day we were saved. It’s time to wake up from our sleep and get real. The night is far-gone and it’s daytime, so stop living in denial and put on God’s armor of light. Stop your quarreling and jealousies. Clothe yourself in the Lord and put away your fleshly cravings.”

We talked about how children in the Lord live in strife and jealousy. This is a sign of where they are in their maturity. We said a child doesn’t know how to love because they are takers not givers. Therefore, we see here that as we are growing, our goal here says that we are to owe no one anything but to love them.

The only way to do this is, first we have to love ourselves. We have continually talked about how we have to grow into loving ourselves as we allow the Lord to show us the great love that He has for us. We know that we cannot love ourselves as we have said if, we are living in denial and not knowing who we are in Christ. How do you get to love someone unless you interact with them?

Remember we said that we are a person with an identity and by us interacting with the Holy Spirit; He shows us our self worth and giftings by God. When real love operates between two people, it becomes a willing self-sacrifice on the part of two people really laying down their lives for each other.

1Cor chapter 13: tells us the type of love God has for us. It’s as we allow Him to role model this love to us, that enables us to love ourselves and love each other. This verse reads, “If I speak in the tongues of men and even angels, but have not love that reasoning, intentional, spiritual devotion such as inspired by God’s love for me, I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal. And if I have prophetic powers that is, the gift of interpreting the divine will and purposes and understand all the secret truth and mysteries, and possess all knowledge and if I can remove mountains, but have not love God’s love operating in me, I am nothing and a useless nobody. If I give out all that I have to the poor in providing food and doing these works in my own self righteousness in order that I can get praise from people and do not have a broken and humble heart with God’s love in me. I am nothing.”

This is pretty strong stuff being said here. To have all this ability and showy talent and gifts but not be loving and not have a real God love for ourselves and other people means that, God is not impressed and calls us a nobody and useless. Let me point out the grievousness of this condition. In essence what we have here are children with a large vocabulary of the word of God and puffing them self up with knowledge and having no fellow feelings with the infirmities of others, including themselves.

In the book of revelations chapter 16 it talks about the great city of Babylon, if you understand that Babylon is considered as a corrupt spirit against God. The word great city in the Greek translation is methistano: meaning carried away or seduced. This reference goes directly to the love chapter in 1Cor 13:2 and as we just noted this verse says that if we do not function in love we are a nobody. Babylon represents a spirit that was led away by deception from experiencing the love of the Lord. They were seduced to rise up in their own strength and power and try to attain some semblance of recognition and might on their own. Let me get right to the point. I hope we are all observing what’s been going on in the world right now.

The United States under our president with agreement from congress has decided to invade Iraq to deliver the iraqian people of a tyrant or what I believe to be a Babylonian spirit of a lack of love, and a spirit of murder that this leader has inflicted on these people that he has ruled. How much more real can God make it for us, so we can actually see human nature in its most grotesque form being unfolded before our very eyes? This is a hard and scaring revelation to think that there is a Babylonian spirit that is at work within the born again Christian community of some of today’s churches.

Jesus in Matthew 10:28 tells us, “not to worry so much about those who can kill our bodies but those that can kill our body and soul.” When are we going to get to understand that God is not in any form trying to take out revenge in any form on any of His children? Only a love without any strings attached would step out of heaven and die on a cross for our rebellion and spiritually un-renewed self. My reasoning tells me that if a person goes that far, He doesn’t change His mind and give up on the people He died for. Jesus is never ending in His endeavor to save us from ourselves.

In 1Cor.13:4-8 it describes the God kind of love that He has for us. It says, “Love endures long and is patient and kind;”” The word endures means, to suffer without yielding. It also represents pain, grief or injury. Ever had a run in of any sort with family member or friend, maybe even your mate and no matter how hard you try to communicate, you are constantly dealing with being abused. You keep going back only to be miss understood and rejected. Therefore, you go to the Lord, present your case, and tell Him about your pain even in tears and trembling at times. I have had to do this many times; sometimes I think it’s a way of life. Constantly forgiving, forgiving and forgiving. Not for the other persons sake but for my own sake. Why? To keep my heart pliable before God so, I don’t allow any bitterness to be put between Him and myself. This process of forgiving is a vital part of learning how to walk in the love of the Lord and loving ourselves and others. That’s why every time I go to the Lord for relief from my pain He shows me the cross. I am still learning to understand the scripture that says, “Greater love has no man than this that, he lay down his life for his friends.”

When we live under an intimidation and a spirit of ultimatums, it doesn’t give you time to think things out. Ever had a conversation with anybody just sharing yourself or wanting some feed back and before you get done explaining yourself, your getting feedback and the one your talking to begins to push their believing system on you. I don’t believe that the majority of Christians today realize that God is not in the advice giving business. God wants us to start using our own minds and reasoning power to decide on His will without timetables and compelling us by force. The answer to our dilemmas is in the problem. It takes time and patience to wait things through and allow the Holy Spirit to sort out our thinking. The problem is most of us are just too busy and want a quick fix on every thing in our lives.

James 3:17 tells us that, “wisdom from above is peaceable, loving, considerate and gentle. It’s willing to yield to reason and is full of compassion, wholehearted and straightforward.” This is what a relationship with the Holy Spirit is all about. It’s a communication of thoughts, words, attitudes and motives between two people. It’s as real as talking to a healthy person in the physical senses. The greatest feeling in the world is allowing the Holy Spirit to inform us through His patient reasoning influence, of some addiction or bondage that the Devil has inflicted on us through our ignorance. Now unless we start encountering this type of relationship with the Lord we will never be able to assemble together in His name and minister to each other with tender care and anointed wisdom.

As I am sitting here writing this that inner voice of the Holy Spirit is telling me that this kind of love is something to be discovered and sought after with all the grit and gusto one can muster. There is a quality of life of life in this experience that my mind cannot understand. If I am going to believe the best of everybody, I am going to have to live without a judgmental attitude. In turn, I’m going to have to learn how to forgive because, I am going to be hurt in the process and God’s love doesn’t weaken. Well let’s get real, I get weak at times and have to run to the Lord to get my daily nourishment of His love to handle my encounters with people who do not walk in perfection. I haven’t run into any perfect people. However, I’m hoping to run into a lot more hungry people searching after God’s perfect will in their lives. The last part of this scripture states that, this type of love never comes to an end. The only other thing that I know that had no beginning or end is God Himself.

1John 4:18 says, “ there is no anxiety or fear of danger in love, but full growing love turns our fears out of doors and expels every trace of terror. For fear brings with it the thoughts of punishment and he who lives in this kind of fear has not come to full maturity of love and is not yet totally perfect. We can only love God because we are learning to allow Him to love us.” It is important to remind ourselves that God is not looking for perfection, but for us to be constantly pliable in His hands and allow Him to invade our hearts and mind and be in a perpetual motion in our relationship. I am convinced that as people learn to daily walk in this type of relationship with Lord, His keeping power of love makes us confident and focused on what walking in the Spirit is all about. When we stay co-dependent and walk in denial it’s because we are not experiencing God’s perfect love.

We are all co-dependent children in some areas of our lives. The problem is when we don’t acknowledge these areas to God; it stops Him from healing us and making us whole. It’s only as we allow God to love us and our trust in Him increases, that will make us willing to interact with Him in those areas that are sensitive and maybe raw.

It is God’s intention to have us respond to Him because of His goodness and grace. If we decide to live by a system of us measuring up to get His attention and earn His favor or deciding our ways of reasoning are better than His then, He uses the world system to get our attention and the consequences we reap brings us to the end of ourselves. If we really understand this, who in their right mind would want to live in a life of strife and confusion like this, and not respond to His goodness and grace. The problem is I don’t believe many of us understand the process going on, because we are ignorant of understanding of how it’s supposed to take place.

Oh, we have heard it preached maybe for years however, I don’t believe we are experiencing it with enough power to want to change our life styles to be delivered from the bondage and strongholds the Devil has inflicted in our lives. This condition exists because, we have not grown to understand that we are loved by God as sons and daughters and are still thinking that God has something against us and that we are some kind of slaves at His commands. This stops us from growing up to be kings and priest in His kingdom and be able to rule and reign along side with Him.

Romans 13:8 tells us, “we should (owe) no man nothing but to love them.” We have discussed what love does. Now what does it mean when we owe instead of love. This word owe in the Greek is opheilo: meaning, to be under obligation, feel guilty or I ought to. You can see here that all these meanings rob us of free will choices of being inter-dependent with each other and doing things because of the pure pleasure we receive for lifting the burdens of others, just as if some one was doing it for ourselves. Obligation in any form robs us of the free choice of action on our part.

We must stop kidding ourselves by living in this false concept of what we think love is all about. Laws of obligation that have been dictated to us in lack of love settings in our lives have brought God’s people into the same bondage as when the Israelites were sold into slavery in Egypt in the Old Testament. Where there is no willful giving of quality value giving of quality value in our eyes to others, there is no love. Remember God our Father gave us His best love gift in Jesus His Son. By us understanding this principle of growth, the Holy Spirit will be able to search our heart and show us where we have missed love and are functioning in obligation, guilt or I ought to do this type of mentality.

The greatest example of love that the world has ever seen is Jesus laying down His life for us to be able to live in eternity in heaven with Him. What greater act can a person do then to give ones life for another? When any one loves us like this, there can be no obligations.

Where there is no obligation, you will give away wealth, time, encouragement, or your own body if it were necessary. The greatest security man can have is him knowing that God who has the answers and sustenance of life is willing to give us anything He possess for our total well-being. It’s obvious that God is the wealthiest person in the universe. Now if He is our Heavenly Father and we are growing to become fathers in our own right. Then He would be channeling His wealth and sustenance to all His children. In turn, we will have an open heart and hands to meet the needs of others in and out of the family.

In Acts 2: 44-47 it tells us the example of Christian living. It says, “All the people who were saved were in one accord and united and had everything in common. They sold their possession, as needed both land and property and movable goods and distributed the price among all who had a need. Moreover, day after day they regularly assembled in the temple and in their homes going house to house breaking bread or having fellowship including food and the Lords supper with gladness in simplicity and with a generous heart. They were constantly praising God and being in favor and goodwill with all the people and the Lord kept adding to their number meaning, more and more were being saved and brought into their fellowship.”

This is very different from going to church on Sunday morning, evening and Wednesday night teaching classes. I believe somewhere down through the centuries the church of Jesus Christ has lost the simplicity of the love of God and how to interact it with each other. We must get back to maturing and explaining what the cost is to grow up in God and get back to our heritage. Only the Holy Spirit led assembling in worship and teaching will cause us to bow our hearts and bend our knee to the supreme right for Him to have complete authority over our gatherings. This statement cannot be left in the letter of the law through rhetoric affirmation. Our flesh has to die and we have to be transformed by the supernatural work of God in our being. Man in all of his endeavors will never duplicate this miracle through his emotions, dancing, screaming or antics.

This now leads us to the next characteristic, which is found in John 12:24-26 Jesus in one of His many conversations with His disciples gives us an example of the attitude and cost of walking with Him when He says, “Unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains alone. It just remains one grain and never produces anything. However, if it’s planted, it produces many others and yields a rich harvest. Anyone who loves his life loses it, but any one who hates his life in this world will keep it to life eternal. Whoever has no love for or no concern for his life here on earth, but despises it, preserves his life forever and ever. If any would serve Me, he must continue to follow Me. He must conform to my example, in living and if need be in dying. Wherever I am, my servant will also be there.

We received all God’s goods when Jesus came into our hearts the day we made Him our Savior. I don’t get tired of reminding myself that it’s us appreciating and living in the awareness of His sacrifice that allows our spirit to experience His love and gives us the power to die to our ways and follow His example. In turn, this gives us the power to lay down our lives for others as He gave His life for us.

You can’t have this dying to self with a casual friendship with Him.

Since growing up in the family of God is unending and God is constantly desiring to lavish His affection on us, this is an unending tale of our life in Christ. To me it’s an unending adventure and anticipation of seeing and understanding a Father who cares about me and that creates in me a wonder of how loving a person can be. If you haven’t tasted and are experiencing how good the Lord is. You’ve missed the whole meaning of what your life is all about.

In my endeavor to walk in obedience to the leading of the Holy Spirit, it’s like walking in the shadow and protection of someone who is constantly watching over you. At one time I thought that after being saved two years that I had arrived. It was then that the Lord made me understand that I was never to assume that I would ever arrive and that was just a spirit of pride and flat out arrogance. It’s knowing that our security in Him is staying in a state of weakness and allowing Him to constantly come to our defense in all situations. What is amazing is we can’t even stay in a this condition of weakness unless we allow God to monitor the playing field as we go about our daily adventures until we meet Him face to face. If you have ever thought that, your disobedience or the condition of disobedience that you might be in right now has God saying, “I don’t like you.” You have believed a lie right from the pit of hell. Loving fathers do not have the capacity to have these feelings. It’s, as we are becoming fathers in the Lord that our root becomes deep in Him, and that our security and anchor in Him becomes unbreakable in our understanding of His love for you.

It takes time and tender loving care from having fellowship with Christians who have walked with the Lord for years and have a heart to function and lay down their lives one for another. The Lord will be as real to you as you allow Him to be. He is only a cry or whisper away and waits with anticipation for us to call to Him. We don’t need a choir or fancy building or special services or another new revival, just a hearts cry like a lamb bleating for his mother lamb bleating for his mother. If you have made Jesus your Savior, let me remind you that, He lives in you heart and being now.

It’s a place of safety and seclusion reserved for you where you can meet daily. I fall asleep at night in that place. It shuts out the cares of life. It’s where we draw the spiritual strength that we need to cope with the daily entanglements and pressures of life that we all are under. It’s only as we become fathers in our adult stage of growth that the body of Christ will come together and walk in inter-dependency. It’s then that we can function in an atmosphere of health. John the Apostle sums it up best when he says, “As we have fellowship with God the Father and fellowship with one another, we will experience God’s complete process of growing up to become adults in His Kingdom.”