Welcome to the first installment of Emerging as God’s Children! This is the beginning of an ongoing series that will last for the foreseeable future. Every Tuesday, I will post a short essay that attempts to express my desire to see Christians (myself included) come into the full knowledge and realization of the truth. What truth, you may ask? That we are the sons and daughters of the Most High God and that we can ask of the Father anything and it shall be done. We carry immense authority with us everywhere we go, authority that can change the world, destroy the works of our enemy the devil, and usher in the Kingdom of Heaven. So why don’t we see the full manifestation of this in our daily lives? Because we are often ignorant of such a profound spiritual reality. Our eyes are closed, our minds are shut, and we have no idea that we wield such mighty power. The Holy Spirit is like a vast ocean, shimmering in the glorious Light, and all we’ve done is taste a few drops of this living water and then scurry back to our dank, dark hole in the ground. Why are we hiding? Why are we so afraid? Why don’t we step out into the Light and live the way God intended? That’s what I’d like to explore in the days ahead.

I was inspired to start this series after reading Ché Ahn’s recent column in the May 2008 issue of Charisma Magazine. He describes how the Church has gone through waves of revelation and revival over the centuries, but that we’re only just beginning to understand what it means to be not just servants of God, not just friends of God, but actual children of God…co-heirs with Jesus Christ of a divine and perfect inheritance, destined to reign as a holy priesthood in God’s glorious kingdom. Ché Ahn isn’t the only one talking about this, of course, but his article got me thinking. This revelation is so deep, so profound, that we’ve completely missed it as a whole for thousands of years. Even now, we still have a hard time grasping the significance of it. What does it mean to be a son or a daughter of God? What does it mean to carry divine authority over sin, decay, and all manner of evil? What does it mean to walk in love, light, purity, and holiness as partakers of the divine nature? How does the theological become the physical — in other words, how can I translate what I feel in my spirit and know in my head into the way I live in the workplace, the home, school, and everywhere else I will spend my days while on the earth?

I discovered something several years ago. It’s very, very hard to resist temptation and live a holy life. Quite frankly, it’s downright impossible. But at the same time, it is possible, because I found that the more I focused on the person of Jesus and my love for Him, the more everything else just seemed to fall into its proper place. The more I gave my heart to God and submitted to His will and authority, the easier it became to do what was right and refrain from doing what was wrong. It is my firm belief that if I were 100% dedicated to God, I would be 0% dedicated to sin. Any sin in my life, any failing, any pride, any distress, is because that area of my life is not under the lordship of Jesus Christ. When I walk with Jesus, I walk in peace.

I titled the first installment of this series “The Cry” because I believe that within every man and woman is a deep yearning for God. We cry out to Him, all the time, but often we aren’t aware of it at our conscious level because we bury it down, way down, and we try hard to ignore it. We get busy, oh so busy, and we forget that we are crying out in desperation. We forget why we’re here. We forget who we were born to be, who we were made to be. We forget that life isn’t about experiencing the things around us we like, it’s about experiencing the One Who has loved us from before the foundation of the world and Who created us for a divine purpose. If we could but stop and remember that our heart’s cry is to love Him back, everything would change. Everything.

I hope you enjoy this new series. See you next week!

Jared