Litzman The Making of a Son

To Be Born Again, You Simply Believe, but the Making of a Son Requires All the Circumstances and Situations of Life
1. Auflage 2022
ISBN: 978-0-9992684-4-5
Verlag: BookBaby
Format: EPUB
Kopierschutz: PC/MAC/eReader/Tablet/DL/kein Kopierschutz

E-Book, Englisch, 92 Seiten

If you were to search to find out how the heavenly Father would treat one of His offspring, you would find the answer in Luke 15. All the depth, the agony, the love, and the correction that would be exemplified toward an erring child is vividly shown in this parable. Many of God's children today are going through hard times and wondering how the Father is dealing with them. The Making of a Son gives insight into how God treats His children, whom He dearly loves. You will receive a new and thrilling understanding of your relationship with your heavenly Father as you read this book.

Autoren/Hrsg.

Litzman, Warren

Leseproben

Chapter 2
The Far Country
God Put All Things Together in Christ “And not many days after the younger son gathered all together, and took his journey into a far country.” (Luke 15:13) The son gathered together his inheritance so he could leave and be with people like himself. He could not abide with a father who said, ‘Son, it’s all yours; you have no need of anything. I am providing for you.’ Instead, he had to be where he could say, ‘I walked right up to Dad, asked for a quarter of a million dollars, and got it.’ Like gravitates to like, whether the bond is fear, strength, a critical spirit, or gossip. Also, honesty breeds honesty, and commitment attracts commitment. So, birds of a feather do, indeed, flock together. Verse 13 is the prelude to such a gathering. You might say that the young man got it together. He had his doctrine all wrapped up; and, sincere in his belief, he took the opportunity to live by his principles. His thought was,’ I’m going to get out of this house and do my own thing. I am being suffocated here. I must get with people who understand me.’ I feel that even the Apostle Paul never got it all together. He had problems with his young disciples and misunderstandings with Peter. Peter was martyred, and Paul lost his head on the chopping block before the situation could be rectified. Paul had a great revelation of grace, yet it seems there was something lacking in it, because he asked God three times to remove the thorn in his flesh and God had to remind him, “My grace is sufficient for thee: for my strength is made perfect in weakness” (2 Corinthians 12:7–9). Some people insist that if you think positively, everything will work out. But I don’t believe we will ever get it all put together, nor were we meant to. If these positive faith believers would pull their heads out of the sand and take an objective look at life, I’m sure they would agree. We have to look through our circumstances and situations to Christ. He will not only give us sufficient grace but will carry the burden as He lives in us. In learning Christ, we must not get sidetracked into looking at what He does; instead, we must see who He is, that “in him dwelleth all the fullness of the Godhead bodily. And ye are complete in him” (Colossians 2:9–10). If you continue to seek, you will find a group of people who want to know Him, not just know about Him. The great miracle in this country today is that God is putting together believers who see “Jesus only” (Matthew 17:8), who see Christ in all things. So the younger son gathered everything together and left his father’s house. If you cannot gather everything together like this, if life’s package comes untied and you can’t put it all back together, don’t get upset. Instead, join the writer of Hebrews and proclaim, “But now we see not yet all things put under him. But we see Jesus” (Hebrews 2:8–9). You must go on with life understanding that Christ is living in you regardless of your circumstances and situations. Remember that Christ is involved with all things. It is not up to you to completely understand everything or put it all together. God is training us through everything. Many people feel they must wait until they have the money, the circumstances are right, and they have complete understanding. Then they will tell the good news to others. No, tell what you know now. Do what the Lord has laid on your heart now, regardless of how the circumstances appear. He wants you to trust Him now, not when you think you have it all together. Be who you are where you are now. Start living the message now, and don’t wait for confirmation from your circumstances. Remember, if, like the lost son, you do get life’s little package put together, flesh may begin to rule over spirit. He Took His Journey Into a Far Country The lost son may have finally felt as if he had control of his own life when he took his inheritance and went into a far country. The term far country indicates three things: 1) The son wanted to get far away from his father; 2) He wanted to make a name for himself; and 3) He did not want his success attributed to his father. The far country signifies independence from God and is familiar ground to every believer. The children of Israel were in a far country when they wandered in the wilderness. They experienced many miracles there but were disobedient and rebellious to God. When the Israelites finally reached Canaan, they still wanted to return to the far country; in fact, they wanted to go back to Egypt. Independence is Satan’s way to make believers selfish and reliant upon themselves, not on the Father’s true nature operating in them. Initially, the further an independent believer strays from the Father the better he feels. The more Israel separated herself from God’s demands, the better she liked it. That is why she stayed in the wilderness forty years in disobedience. In the Bible we can see that God always allows His servants to go wrong before they go right. God let Lucifer go wrong and has used him ever since as His convenient agent. God let Adam go wrong, as well as Cain, Jacob, David, and many others. This illustrates that believers must come to a crisis, that is, into a far country, before they are ready to return home. It is important to God that we all come to such a crisis. A believer’s coming to a crisis is the point at which God can work in his life. At this critical time the Holy Spirit can lock His truth into him. Many believers can take the truth of the gospel for only a moment, then it flows off like water from a duck’s back. When a believer’s very being has been severely cut, then the truth can be absorbed. Then, when the Spirit’s healing oil is applied, it has a place to saturate. If you have ever passed through such a crisis, you know how it prepared you for the truth to take hold in your life. The Faith of the Son of God This young man may have been excited about his new freedom, but he had set himself up for a fall. He was like a man who has received a call to preach. His only thought is, ‘Bless God, I’m going out to save a bunch of people and start a church. I’ll hold a revival and before you know it, I will be on radio and television, and be known all over the world!’ This is the spirit of someone who has everything put together and is going out to show forth the glory of God. The flesh always feels as if it has the situation under control. Today, it is common to hear the prosperity gospel of positive thinking. This religion helps give people the feeling that they have it all put together. They never think negatively; they simply believe they are going to be successful. This sounds good on the surface; it even sounds like real faith, but it is not Christ. It is a fact that what appears to be faith may not be Christ. A faith of positive living, positive thinking, or positive confession may not be Christ at all, but only flesh. You may have the faith that is of flesh rather than the faith that is of the Son of God (Galatians 2:20). You may be doing the living instead of Christ living in you. You may think you have it all under control instead of knowing that “by him all things consist” (Colossians 1:17). Such an attitude is not only fleshly, but it also indicates that a great fall is in your future. If you are able to work out your life on your own, why do you need Jesus? Many churches today are in such carnality, with self-promotion and independence from God. There is no thought that Christ should live in the believers and that the believers should live Christ. Carnality is a poison flowing through believers which threatens the growth of Christ in them. If you feel you don’t have your life or work under control, cheer up; you are on the right road. God never intended that you figure it all out. He intended that you trust Jesus Christ, that you be like a wife to a husband named Christ and be totally dependent upon Him. God’s plan was not that you just seek Jesus in an emergency. He wants Christ to be your all in all, your very life. If you have the realization that you are not what you should be, if there are loose ends in your life, then thank the Father. The loose ends are there to bring you to the end of yourself when you can thank the Father that you are married to Christ and that He is your only life. Then you can say with Paul, “I live; yet not I, but Christ liveth in me: and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved me, and gave himself for me” (Galatians 2:20). The Father is always working toward this end. The Good Pleasure of the Father’s Will It was difficult for the father to watch the training of his son. Several days elapsed from the time the son asked for his portion of the inheritance until his possessions were gathered together. Can you imagine the pain the father went through during the time he watched his beloved son ready himself to go into the world? I have always thought that it would have been better if the son had left the same day and spared his father this anguish. For the father, the quicker his son got to the hog pen the better. Why? Because no training in sonship would take place until he reached that destination. Ephesians 1:5 tells us that God derives pleasure from the training and development of His sons. It is according to the good pleasure of His will that you are down and out and ready to quit trying to live the Christian life in your own strength. This pleases God because He knows He has planted in you total victory, righteousness, perfection, and holiness. God knows you are nearing a crisis when the Holy Spirit will reveal...