My Family Rights

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“A Voice for the Gathering Saints”
Duane Stewart

“My Family Rights”

God’s family which is called the Children of Israel in the Old Testament was the results of a covenant God had made with their father Abraham. This covenant, requiring them to remain faithful, became the arena of God’s provision and protection. But history reveals that unfaithfulness, the breaking of the covenant, removed God’s promised provision and protection for long period’s of time. However, God, being ever loving and faithful continued to care for His family. This love moved God to establish guidelines and laws in which, when obeyed, He would again be obligated to supply their needs and protect them. This God did, in many forms and fashions, as He remained faithful to the covenant He had willingly made. God, in His wisdom and knowledge, foresaw the day when Joshua would be raised up to led God’s people into the land that had been promised. In his place of leadership, Joshua was promised (Read Joshua 1:1-9) that God would never leave nor forsake him. God also encouraged Joshua to be strong and of good courage for He would be with him wherever he went, and God was faithful to fulfill His word of promise. In all this, Joshua was not able to lead them into the rest that was promised, so there yet remains a promised rest for God’s people, His family.

Israel’s failure to enter the promised land of rest becomes a solemn warning, lest professing Christians fail also to enter the rest that God has promised. This rest, promised by God, is not an entrance into Canaan, but as an historical event, it is a type of a rest to be enjoyed by God’s family. This rest can be a present day experience for the believer’s who fully surrender to the Lordship of Christ and who are totally controlled by the Holy Spirit. But know this, the mere hearing of the gospel is not enough, it must be believed and acted upon by faith. Heb. 4:1-2, “Therefore, since a promise remains of entering His rest, let us fear lest any of you seem to have come short of it. For indeed the gospel was preached to us as well as to them; but the word which they heard did not profit them, not being mixed with faith in those who heard it”. Yes, there yet remains a promise that some must enter into, a place of fulfillment and rest. Heb. 4:9-10, “There remains therefore a rest for the people of God. For he who has entered His rest has himself also ceased from his works as God did from His”. Likewise, just as God rested from His work of creation, the ones who trust in Christ are resting in what God has done for them. They have ceased their striving to achieve salvation by their own efforts, and in daily life have learned a dependence upon the Holy Spirit’s help.

How and why? Because God purposed a better covenant when Christ Jesus fulfilled and replaced the old covenant law written upon the tablets of stone. The first covenant was entirely external. While it set the standard, it provided no power to keep it (Read Heb. 8:7-13). Jesus’ ministry is performed under this covenant of God’s grace and is written within the minds and hearts of believers by the power of the Holy Spirit. In this, God established a new personal covenant relationship with His people. This new covenant is not based on a compelling force from without, but on an impelling power from within. While the old covenant was limited and an impersonal revelation, the new covenant is one of complete, universal, and immediate knowledge of God.

This new covenant speaks of an adoption that removes one from being without a holy family, to becoming a part of the family of God. Being a part of God’s family puts us in the position of inheriting the rights and privileges of God, even as it exists in the Lord Jesus Christ. Nothing left out, all being made available. We become heirs and co-heirs with Christ. Rom. 8:15, “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”. Thus, this same Holy Spirit which dwells in Jesus gives us the assurance that we are children of God, the children of God who have been called to be glorified with Him, as we suffer with Him. Rom. 8:17, “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”. This gives us the assurance that our present status as children of God guarantees participation in the present and future joy of God’s kingdom. This assurance is not withheld from us, waiting for a time in the future, but, we, as His children await only maturity that we might know the full adoptive power of that which Christ is. Our present tense groaning, our maturing processes are determined by our willingness to overcome that we might inherit. Rom. 8:23, “Not only that, but we also who have the first-fruits of the Spirit, even we ourselves groan within ourselves, eagerly waiting for the adoption, the redemption of our body”. Just as the first-fruits of a harvest are the pledge of the full crop to come, the Holy Spirit is the pledge of our full adoption when our bodies are redeemed. The time for groaning is over and our bodies, subject to pain and sin, are being resurrected and made free from physical frailty and indwelling sin.

The theology being promoted among most of Christianity today is one that continues to put the fulfillment of God’s purposes off into some time in the future. This theology establishes a mind-set that excuses a people from becoming His resurrected expression in the now. But does this mind-set line up with the word of God? Has not the risen savior been seated on the right hand of the Father? Has not the Holy Spirit been given that He might teach us all things concerning God? Being under the old covenant keeps us as children, while the new covenant brings forth the adoption. This adoption makes us sons with all the rights of the family. When? Now, as we are able to believe. Gal. 4:4-7, “But when the fullness of the time had come, God sent forth His Son, born of a woman, born under the law, to redeem those who were under the law, that we might receive the adoption as sons. And because you are sons, God has sent forth the Spirit of His Son into your hearts, crying out, Abba, Father! Therefore you are no longer a slave but a son, and if a son, then an heir of God through Christ”. Thus, the assurance that according to the good pleasure of God’s will an appointed plan and guaranteed destiny has come. Eph. 1:5, “having predestined us to adoption as sons by Jesus Christ to Himself, according to the good pleasure of His will”.

This place in God changes a people, no longer a “woe is me”, but a people who manifest a life style that reveals the Father in our daily lives. When God speaks to His family to “be filled” with the Spirit, the tense of this Greek word makes clear that such a Spirit-filled condition does not stop with a single experience, but is maintained by continually being filled with the Spirit. The Holy Spirit is to influence all aspects of our lives, overflowing in transforming relationships, dynamic ministry and enhanced worship. Eph. 5:18-20, “And do not be drunk with wine, in which is excess, but be filled with the Spirit, speaking to one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing and making melody in your heart to the Lord, giving thanks always for all things to God the Father in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ”.

Religious platitudes, rituals and doctrinal traditions are not “the order of the day” in Christ. As He ascended back unto the Father, He changed the “order of the day” from the law to His grace, a grace that would impart the promise of the Father, a promise that would endow the believers and receivers with power from on high. This power is the enabler that brings all that Christ is to this earthly realm. The power of His grace will take the invisibleness of God and cause it to become His visible expression. Luke 24:49, “Behold I send the promise of My Father upon you; but terry in the city of Jerusalem until you are endued with power from on high”. This power is the filling of the Holy Spirit, Who takes up residence within the vessel and empowers them for their mission. This is the supernatural power that Jesus uses to fulfill His purpose unto the world through His family. Has not this power been available, these past 2000 years, for us to become?

God’s requirement, come through Him. Through Christ and His death we have the power and freedom to choose not to sin. We are to live in holiness because we have been made holy, by grace, through faith in Christ Jesus. Thus He requires, James 4:8, “Draw near to God and He will draw near to you. Cleanse your hands, you sinners; and purify your hearts, you double-minded”. A double-minded man is a person drawn in two opposite directions. His allegiance is divided and because of his lack of sincerity he vacillates between belief and disbelief, sometimes thinking that God will help him and at other times giving up all hope in Him. Such a person is unstable in all his ways. The lack of consistency in his exercise of faith betrays his general character. Thus, a double-minded person attempts to hold to God and the world at the same time.

Meanwhile, God is rising up in His family and because we are a part of His family we have all the inherited rights of the family. By exercising these rights we become separated from the world and the world from us. God progressively reveals Himself as obedience matures each one to a place of truth wherein freedom of exercise is imparted to manifest all that truth. John 8:32, “And you shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free”. Remember, the law, the old covenant made nothing perfect, but the ushering in of a new covenant makes perfection in Him a way of life. To those under a law, if they were truly children of God, they would have reverence for the Son of God. It is not ethnic or family pedigree that makes one acceptable to God, but by honoring God, by believing in and loving Jesus Christ.

What are my family rights? All things that the Father purposed for His creation are mine. When are they available? Now, since the Holy Spirit was given on the Day of Pentecost and to each one individually, as they receive Him into their lives. God promises that the Spirit will guide each receiver into all truth. The Spirit’s ministry is not only directed to believers, but He also worked in Christ. John 16:13-15, “However, when He, the Spirit of truth, has come, He will guide you into all truth; for He will not speak on His own authority, but whatever He hears He will speak; and He will tell you things to come. He will glorify me, for He will take of what is mine and declare it to you. All things that the Father has are mine. Therefore I said that He will take of mine and declare it to you”. What the Spirit teaches, He draws from and conveys in the authority of Christ, and glorifies Christ in all that He does. True ministry in the Holy Spirit never serves a private agenda. Working in us and through us, the Spirit never exalts Himself, but He continually glorifies Christ who glorifies the Father. As the body of Christ then, what is our purpose? We are to take all of our family rights, to become His glory, that the Father may likewise be glorified. What does this mean and how does it affect the ministry? It affects us by having a righteousness that goes beyond and is deeper than traditional religion. We are to teach the things Jesus taught, in the way He taught them, by always staying in tune with the Father. We are to do the things He did in the manner in which He did them. Jesus treated people with dignity, was motivated by compassion, and never did anything to selfishly draw attention to Himself. Friends, the same Spirit that raised Christ from death dwells in us who have received. Therefore, the same Spirit is saying to the overcoming remnant family of God, go and do likewise, this is our family right.

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