Tag Archives: adoption

RELATIONSHIP AND FELLOWSHIP

October 19, 2024Bible Studyadoption, fellowship, walk in the lightLuella Campbell

There seems to be confusion, in our understanding of the Christian life, between relationship and fellowship. What do I mean?

How many families on earth have many members in a family relationship, husbands and wives, parents and children, siblings and siblings, aunts and uncles, cousins, etc., and yet they have little or no heart connection with one another. They have relationships but no fellowship. They live together but don’t communicate. They speak but don’t listen.

Once a couple has married, they are legally bound together in a relationship no matter what happens in their home. Children born of that marriage are sons and daughters and can never be “un-born”, no matter how they behave. Even if they no longer live together for whatever reason, they remain in a family relationship. They are always children of their biological parents.

However, fellowship between family members is different. Fellowship means that they are mentally and emotionally connected. They do life together. They share common experiences, interests, and goals. They have empathy and concern for one another. They function as a unit. They quickly correct what goes wrong to keep peace and harmony in the family. Most of all, they respect the order of authority and submission that maintains the function of those who belong to each other.

So it is with people and God. We are assured of a relationship with Him when we believe in Jesus. He receives us into His family permanently, and changes our status from slave to son. The Bible calls this miraculous transformation “adoption”.

Ephesians 1:4-5 NLT
[4] “Even before he made the world, God loved us and chose us in Christ to be holy and without fault in his eyes. [5] God decided in advance to adopt us into his own family by bringing us to himself through Jesus Christ. This is what he wanted to do, and it gave him great pleasure.”

God planned our adoption in eternity and made it happen through Jesus who reconciled us to the Father through His death. The Holy Spirit in us confirms our status as sons by His inner witness.

Romans 8:15-16 NLT
[15] “So you have not received a spirit that makes you fearful slaves. Instead, you received God’s Spirit when he adopted you as his own children. Now we call him, “Abba, Father.” [16] For his Spirit joins with our spirit to affirm that we are God’s children.”

Does this mean that we can never be “unborn”? In the spiritual sense, I think so.

However, just as it is in a human family, relationship does not mean or guarantee fellowship. Relationship is established once-for-all and is permanent. Fellowship must be maintained by day-by-day attention to the attitudes and behaviour that govern our fellowship.

In John’s first letter, he helps us understand what promotes, and holds fellowship together.

1 John 1:1-3, 5-7 NLT
[1] “We proclaim to you the one who existed from the beginning, whom we have heard and seen. We saw him with our own eyes and touched him with our own hands. He is the Word of life. [2] This one who is life itself was revealed to us, and we have seen him. And now we testify and proclaim to you that he is the one who is eternal life. He was with the Father, and then he was revealed to us. [3] We proclaim to you what we ourselves have actually seen and heard so that you may have fellowship with us. And our fellowship is with the Father and with his Son, Jesus Christ….
[5] This is the message we heard from Jesus and now declare to you: God is light, and there is no darkness in him at all. [6] So we are lying if we say we have fellowship with God but go on living in spiritual darkness; we are not practicing the truth. [7] But if we are living in the light, as God is in the light, then we have fellowship with each other, and the blood of Jesus, his Son, cleanses us from all sin.”

Let’s examine, step by step, what John says about fellowship.

To have fellowship with the Father and with His children is a process, beginning in eternity and unfolding in time for every individual who enters this unseen realm by faith.

First, fellowship with God and with one another in God’s family has a beginning in time in the new birth, based on the solid foundation of truth. We can only have fellowship with each other if our relationship is based on common faith in what God has done for us.

John assures his readers that he, (with his fellow disciples, obviously), had personal experience of Jesus who was a real flesh-and-blood human with whom they lived for several years. They saw Him die and rise again. Their faith in Him was based on solid evidence.

Their common faith, then, had a strong foundation on reliable fact. From that fact, they experienced the spiritual reality of new birth, and received new hearts that enabled them to have new relationships with one another.

All believers are now brothers and sisters in God’s eternal family. Human divisions and distinctions fall away and a new species has come into being. We are a new creation and all one in Christ.

2 Corinthians 5:16-17 NLT
[16] “So we have stopped evaluating others from a human point of view. At one time we thought of Christ merely from a human point of view. How differently we know him now! [17] This means that anyone who belongs to Christ has become a new person. The old life is gone; a new life has begun!”

Galatians 3:26-29 NLT
[26]” For you are all children of God through faith in Christ Jesus. [27] And all who have been united with Christ in baptism have put on Christ, like putting on new clothes. [28] There is no longer Jew or Gentile, slave or free, male and female. For you are all one in Christ Jesus. [29] And now that you belong to Christ, you are the true children of Abraham. You are his heirs, and God’s promise to Abraham belongs to you.”

It is this new relationship in God’s family with the common bond of faith in Jesus, love for one another, and common interest in God’s kingdom that constitutes the common life we share in God’s kingdom.

This relationship of family members in God’s family gives each member an opportunity and a responsibility to cultivate fellowship on a deeper level than in an average human family. Membership in God’s family adds a dimension not necessessarily present in a human family, that of relationship with God the Father and the Son, cultivated and maintained through the Holy Spirit in them.

Since we have the foundation, a new life based on truth and held together by God’s love working in and through us, we now have the reason and opportunity for true fellowship. Through God’s power working in us, He has set up this fellowship which is now up to us to maintain throughout our lives.

How do we maintain this fellowship?

John gives us two simple criteria for maintaining fellowship with the Father and with one another.

1 John 1:5-9 NLT
[5] “This is the message we heard from Jesus and now declare to you: God is light, and there is no darkness in him at all. [6] So we are lying if we say we have fellowship with God but go on living in spiritual darkness; we are not practicing the truth. [7] But if we are living in the light, as God is in the light, then we have fellowship with each other, and the blood of Jesus, his Son, cleanses us from all sin. [8] If we claim we have no sin, we are only fooling ourselves and not living in the truth. [9] But if we confess our sins to him, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all wickedness.”

Our fellowship with one another depends on our fellowship with God, the Trinity which we maintain by “living in the light”. What does living or walking in the light mean? Since God’s Word is …

Psalms 119:105 NLT
[105]”…a lamp to guide my feet and a light for my path.”

We live in the light by adhering to the requirements of the New Covenant. Again, it’s John who clarifies these requirements (which summarise and replace all 613 laws of the Old Covenant).

1 John 3:23-24 NLT
[23] “And this is his commandment: We must believe in the name of his Son, Jesus Christ, and love one another, just as he commanded us. [24] Those who obey God’s commandments remain in fellowship with him, and he with them. And we know he lives in us because the Spirit he gave us lives in us.”

Do you get it?

Fellowship with the Father is the foundation of our fellowship with one another. To maintain this fellowship, walking in the light with God must extend to walking in the light with one another. This kind of life demands all the grace God provides for living in a loving relationship of caring and sharing without hidden motives and dishonest attitudes which is initiated and maintained as we obey the Holy Spirit in us.

So, Paul counsels…

Colossians 3:5-15 NLT
[5] “Put to death the sinful, earthly things lurking within you. Have nothing to do with sexual immorality, impurity, lust, and evil desires. Don’t be greedy, for a greedy person is an idolater, worshiping the things of this world. [6] Because of these sins, the anger of God is coming. [7] You used to do these things when your life was still part of this world. [8] But now is the time to get rid of anger, rage, malicious behavior, slander, and dirty language. [9] Don’t lie to each other, for you have stripped off your old sinful nature and all its wicked deeds. [10] Put on your new nature, and be renewed as you learn to know your Creator and become like him. [11] In this new life, it doesn’t matter if you are a Jew or a Gentile, circumcised or uncircumcised, barbaric, uncivilized, slave, or free. Christ is all that matters, and he lives in all of us. [12] Since God chose you to be the holy people he loves, you must clothe yourselves with tenderhearted mercy, kindness, humility, gentleness, and patience. [13] Make allowance for each other’s faults, and forgive anyone who offends you. Remember, the Lord forgave you, so you must forgive others. [14] Above all, clothe yourselves with love, which binds us all together in perfect harmony. [15] And let the peace that comes from Christ rule in your hearts. For as members of one body you are called to live in peace. And always be thankful.”

In the atmosphere of transparency, genuine love functions in harmony, togetherness flourishes, and fellowship happens.

God’s goal for His children is to cultivate this fellowship, flowing from love and unity, in the body of Christ, because this is the witness to the truth of Jesus’ life and death that is the power of the gospel.

John 13:35 NLT
[35] “Your love for one another will prove to the world that you are my disciples.”

John 17:22-23 NLT
[22] “I have given them the glory you gave me, so they may be one as we are one. [23] I am in them and you are in me. May they experience such perfect unity that the world will know that you sent me and that you love them as much as you love me.”

So, fellowship is the fruit of our relationship with God, and relationship as His sons and daughters in His forever family, the root of our fellowship with God and one another.

ALREADY GOD’S KIDS

April 15, 2021Bible Studyadoption, firstfruits of the Spirit, redemption of our bodiesLuella Campbell

ALREADY GOD’S KIDS

“Not only so, but we who have the firstfuits of the Spirit, groan inwardly as we wait eagerly for our adoption to sonship, the redemption of our bodies. For in this hope we were saved. But hope that is seen is no hope at all. Who hopes for what they already have? But if we hope for what we do not have, we wait for it patiently.” Romans 8:23-25.

The evidences of creation’s groaning are all around us. We see it in destructive weather patterns and in natural disasters such as wind, earthquakes, fire and floods. It is evident in the violence that happens in the animal kingdom. We feel utterly helpless at the power of volcanic eruptions, hurricanes and tornados. We feel instinctively that it is unnatural for the earth to be heaving and writhing as though in pain.

What of our own groaning? Do we not groan in our pain and suffering, our emotional upheavals and the helplessness and hopelessness we feel when we have no control over our circumstances? Paul says, “Take heart, child of God. These are the birth pangs, like a woman in labour. A whole new order that is coming into being. Our travail is not in vain. We will not bring forth wind.”

On what do we place our hope? Just as the firstfuits of the harvest assure us that the full harvest will soon be ripe, so we, who have the Holy Spirit already, know that He is the guarantee of the fulfilment of God’s promise.

When God created the first man and woman, He fused his body and spirit. Created from the dust of the earth, God breathed His Spirit into him and he became a living being. Death is unnatural; the separation of body and spirit was not God’s intention. It was sin that resulted in death. Redemption will not be complete until our bodies are restored to their original perfection and reunited with our spirits.

When Jesus rose from the dead, He became the firstfuits of the resurrection.

“But Christ has indeed been raised from the dead, the firstfuits of those who have fallen asleep. For since death came through a man, the resurrection of the dead also came through a man. For as in Adam all die, so in Christ shall all be made alive. But each in turn; Christ the firstfuits; then, when He comes, those who belong to Him. Then the end will come…” 1 Corinthians 15:20-24a.

When this happens, our adoption as God’s sons and daughters will be complete. We are already His children. He views the finished product. He treats us as though we are already perfect. We are in the process of becoming what we already are.

“For in Christ all the fullness of the deity lives in bodily form, and in Christ you have been brought to fullness…” Colossians 2:9, 10a.

“For by one sacrifice He has made perfect forever those who are being made holy.” Hebrews 10:14.

Wow! Do you realise what that means? We do not have to gain God’s approval or earn our position with Him. Since we are in Christ Jesus through faith, we have already been approved as His sons and daughters and made perfect from His point of view. His Spirit is at work in us, fashioning us into what we already are, mirror images of His Son and our brother, Jesus Christ.

“See what great love the Father has lavished on us that we should be called children of God! And that is what we are! The reason the world does not know us is that it did not know Him. Dear friends, now we are children of God, and what we will be has not yet been made known. But we know that when Christ appears, we shall be like Him for we shall see Him as He is. All who have this hope in Him purify themselves, just as He is pure.” 1 John 3:1-3.

We have a strong motivation for persevering in our faith and hope in God and in godly living because the rewards far outweigh the cost. What we endure now because of our loyalty to Him is temporary and cannot be compared with the eternal reward of being made complete in Him.

He Did It For Himself

December 12, 2015Bible Studyadoption, every spiritual blessing, God and Father, praise of His glorious grace, predestinedLuella Campbell

HE DID IT FOR HIMSELF

Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in the heavenly realms with every spiritual blessing in Christ. For He chose us in Him before the creation of the world to be holy and blameless in His sight. In love, He predestined us for adoption to sonship through Jesus Christ, in accordance with His pleasure and will – to the praise of His glorious grace, which He freely gives us in the One He loves (Eph. 1: 3-6).

Today I have the pleasure of directing your attention to something Paul wrote that the church has either largely ignored or forgotten. In a popular Christian magazine published in my country, the editor wrote in her editorial, three reasons for needing Jesus: We need forgiveness, we need a friend and we need a future.

This is a typical symptom of the humanistic Jesus and the humanistic gospel that is prevalent in the church today. God the Father and Jesus the Son have been downgraded to those who are here to meet our needs. Although it is true that God does meet our needs, is that the reason He had such a daring plan in sending His Son into the world?

Church groups and denominational and independent evangelists often visit my town, and prepare their arrival by putting up large, brightly coloured posters announcing their campaigns with words such as “Come and get your miracle”! This may be a “seeker-friendly” way to attract people, but is this the message of the gospel?

By the way, I have also noticed how much of Christian “prayer” treats God like a celestial “slot machine”. Drop your prayer into the slot, push the button and out comes the answer – a practice disguised by the words, “I’m believing God for . . .” What happened to the trust, submission and obedience that are the hallmarks of a son or daughter? Jesus taught us to pray, “Your will be done,” not, “My will be done . . . and I have told you what I want!”

Strangely enough, Paul mentions none of these motives for believing in Jesus in his letter to the Ephesian church. He paints a very different picture for believing in Jesus from the one presented by much of our modern-day evangelism. His outburst of praise flowed from his understanding of God’s heart. Why did God send Jesus? So that we can escape hell and go to heaven? So that God can take away all our problems and give us health and wealth to enjoy this life?

Paul repeatedly incorporated a six-word phrase into his expression of praise, which says it all! God did everything through Christ “to the praise of His glory.” Before Paul’s arrival, Ephesus was a city of paganism, idolatry and witchcraft and the evil practices accompanying these false beliefs. The people worshipped Diana, a many-breasted goddess, through cult prostitution with the priestesses at Diana’s temple.

Paul’s letter to a church in this city is proof enough of the power of the gospel of Jesus to rescue people from the “gates of hell”. Through His power, He changed their lives from idol-worshippers to sons and daughters of the Most High God, whom He had called to be “holy and blameless in His sight.” Wow!

But what did Paul preach? Come to Jesus to have your sins forgiven. He will be your friend and you will have a future in heaven? A thousand times, no! Paul and Peter preached the same message. Paul wrote:

For what we preach is not ourselves, but Jesus Christ as Lord, and ourselves as your servants for Jesus’ sake. For God, who said, ‘Let light shine out of darkness,’ made His light shine in our hearts to give us the light of the knowledge of God’s glory displayed in the face of Christ (2 Cor. 4: 5-6).

And on the Day of Pentecost, Peter declared:

Therefore, let all Israel be assured of this: God has made this Jesus, whom you crucified, both Lord and Messiah (Acts 2: 36).

It was God’s plan from the beginning, not just to take us to heaven when we die, but to transform us from rebel sinners into sons and daughters, recreated in the image of our Creator and refashioned into the image of His Son. His plan was that we should reflect His glory by being replicas of His Son on earth.

For the creation waits in eager expectation for the children of God to be revealed (Rom. 8: 19).

Paul stated with great vehemence to the Galatian church:

But even if we or an angel from heaven, should preach a gospel other than the one we preached to you, let him be under God’s curse (Gal. 1: 8).

Dear reader, beware! Do not fall for a gospel that dethrones Jesus. Jesus died in obedience to the Father so that the Father’s mercy (the glory) could forever be put on display. Anything less than that is not the gospel. It is a lie!

Oh the depths of the riches of the wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable are His judgments and His paths beyond tracing out . . . for from Him and through Him and to Him are all things. To Him be glory forever! Amen (Rom. 11: 33; 36).

ISBN: Softcover – 978-1-4828-0512-3, eBook 978-4828-0511-6

Available on www.amazon.com in paperback, e-book or Kindle version, on www.takealot.com or order directly from the publisher at www.partridgepublishing.com.

My second book, Learning to be a Disciple – The Way of the Master (Copyright © 2015, Partridge Publishing), a companion volume to Learning to be a Son – The Way to the Father’s Heart, has been released in paperback and digital format on www.amazon.com.

For more details, check my website:

http://luellaannettecampbell.com/

Have you read my blogs on www.learningtobeason.wordpress.com ?

Learning To Be A Son – Chapter Five – Slaves or Sons?

October 4, 2015Book Reviewsadoption, faith, Holy Spirit, slaves, sonsLuella Campbell

CHAPTER FIVE

Slaves or Sons?

Since we have already established that the whole of humankind was intended to be the family of God and that every person is potentially a son or daughter of God, how do we move from potential to actual? The operative word is “faith”. New Testament writers like John and Paul understood what Jesus came to do. He came to reveal the true nature of the Father and to remove the barrier of sin that separated us from Him so that we can be restored to our rightful place as sons and daughters of God.

Jesus calls us to become His disciples, followers of our rabbi so that, in close and intimate association with Him, we can learn to be sons by watching, listening and imitating Him. When we respond to His call, we begin our journey with Him which will take us to the Father if we follow His way, obey His instructions and keep our eyes on our destination.

Sin, the great barrier between man and God, was the outcome of Adam’s disobedience to God’s instruction in the Garden of Eden. Sin destroyed the fellowship Adam and Eve had with God and left them dirty, diseased, deformed and dead – unable to connect with God because their nature had become corrupted. It was because of His great love that He had already formulated His plan to rescue us from the ravages of sin and adopt us once again into His family through the death of His Son.

Through the Holy Spirit, whom He sent on the Day of Pentecost, God confirmed the forgiveness Jesus bought by His death, and restored everyone who believes in Jesus to His family as His sons and daughters. The Holy Spirit is the Spirit of adoption. He witnesses with our spirit that we are children of God and, through Him, we can address God as Abba, Father – a term of intimacy and endearment.

Those who are led by the Spirit are the sons of God, not those who claim allegiance because they have signed a decision card or answered an altar call. It is because of our status as sons and daughters that we enjoy all the benefits of life in the family of God. This is our “password” to eternal life – not when we die but now, in fellowship with the Father and with the Son in the power and presence of the Holy Spirit.

We are still fallible human beings, with an old sinful nature that is vulnerable to temptation. Satan has been defeated but he is still active to deceive us when we listen to his lies. There still lurks in us the thought that we are his slaves under his power and that we are subject to punishment when we sin. We try to gain acceptance with the Father through keeping rules instead of living in the truth that Jesus fully paid our debt and that His cry on the cross, “It is finished!” meant exactly that.

Since we have not fully understood the implications of His death, we feel uncomfortable with God. Like the returning prodigal, we want to be treated as slaves and not fully accepted as sons. But God has not given us the spirit of slavery which makes us afraid of Him. He has given us the Spirit of adoption. We are truly the sons and daughters of God, forgiven and fully accepted. Our response is to come out from the world and be separated to God. He has promised that He will be a Father to us in the truest sense of the word.

When we respond to Jesus’ invitation to follow Him, we leave our old life behind and begin our journey with Him which will take us to the Father, learning from Him what a true son is like and being transformed into His image as we continue to abandon our old ways of thinking and return to His way.

ISBN: Softcover – 978-1-4828-0512-3, eBook 978-4828-0511-6

Available on www.amazon.com in paperback, e-book or kindle version or order directly from the publisher at www.partridgepublishing.com.

My second book, Learning to be a Disciple – The Way of the Master (Copyright © 2015, Partridge Publishing), companion volume to Learning to be a Son – The Way to the Father’s Heart, has been released in paperback and digital format on www.amazon.com.

To order your 0wn copy of either book, contact

Toll free – 0800 990 914 (South Africa)

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www.partridgepublishing.com/africa or

+44 20 314 3997 (outside South Africa)

ISBN: Hardcover – 978-1-4828-0891-9 Softcover 978-1-4828-0890-2 eBook 978-1-4828-0889-6

Check out my Blog site – www.learningtobeason.wordpress.com

A Privileged People

August 10, 2014Bible Studyadoption, cursed, glory, my people, sorrowLuella Campbell

A PRIVILEGED PEOPLE

“I speak the truth in Christ – I am not lying, my conscience confirms it through the Holy Spirit – I have great sorrow and unceasing anguish in my heart. For I could wish that I myself were cursed and cut off from Christ for the sake of my people, those of my own race, the people of Israel. Theirs is the adoption to sonship; theirs the divine glory, the covenants, the receiving of the law, the temple worship and the promises. Theirs are the patriarchs and from them is traced the human ancestry of the Messiah, who is God over all, forever praised! Amen.” Romans 9:1-5.

What an illustrious pedigree the Jewish people have! Is it any wonder that they are so hated by the rest of the world! The devil has made sure that God and anyone or anything that has to do with Him is thoroughly vilified.

Since the call of Abraham, the Jews have been the most blessed and privileged people on earth. From the first family, they have been surrounded by God’s protection and provision. Abraham was called from his idolatrous environment in Ur to a journey of raw faith in a God who was unseen but real to him. He heard Him speak and learned to follow His instructions with amazing results.

Who else, at the age of one hundred years, when his wife was old and barren, became a father because God said he would? Who else was so blessed that he became so rich and famous in a foreign land that he was respected wherever he went, although he was a nomad?

Abraham’s descendants became so numerous in Egypt that they were a threat to the Pharaoh of a new dynasty who disregarded Joseph’s contribution to his nation? Who else was delivered from slavery in such a dramatic way that it became their signature? God, Israel and deliverance were tied together as their unforgettable identity. “I am the God who brought you out of Egypt, out of the land of slavery.”

Who else received a constitution for their nation, written on stone by His own finger, that has never been surpassed? God’s covenant with His people, if faithfully obeyed, would have elevated them above all other nations in their care for one another and for the foreigners who found shelter among them. It bound them to God in an indestructible union in which He pledged to live among them and be their God. What a God to worship! To belong to Him was the safest relationship in the entire universe.

What other nation had the glorious presence of their God in a visible representation within the very building in which they worshipped Him? Other nations had gods of wood and stone but they were as dead as the material that represented them. Only the God of Israel was among them, symbolised by the unearthly light that radiated His glory from the mercy seat between the golden cherubim above the Ark of the Covenant.

No other temple on earth was as beautiful or lavishly adorned as the temple that Solomon built as a place of worship for his God. It was David’s dream to honour the God he adored with the best he could give – a dream carried out by his son – as a permanent and visible reminder of the glory of their God who was among them.

What other God wanted a family of sons and daughters who would live in harmony with Him and with each other in an eternal bond of love? What other God came in person to His people to tell them and show them how much He loved them – so much, in fact, that He paid the debt of their sin by giving His own life for them?

Is it any wonder that Paul grieved for his people, so much so that, if possible, he would have forfeited his own place in the family of God for them, if only they would believe? But Paul knew, just as it had taken a mind-blowing encounter with the living Christ to convince him of the truth, so his people needed the power of the gospel through the conviction of the Holy Spirit, to bring them to faith in their Messiah.

It had happened in Jerusalem fifty days after the resurrection, when the Holy Spirit fell on the believers and the church was born, Jewish to the core. But, once again, the stubborn hearts of his people turned them from the Messiah and drove many of them into becoming bullying persecutors.

And Paul grieved for their loss.

Acknowledgement

Ebenezer Family Church

HE IS RISEN!