For a while I have been contemplating and reflecting on the work, or the ways and fruits of an orphaned heart and spirit.
Then I came across Sister Prema’s writing this morning, it prompted me to make a comment.
So many of “great men or women of God” have never really crossed over the boundaries of a self-centered or disarrayed life. They never know what it means to truly become an approved son of God. Looking at the end of some eminent figures in the healing movement from the last century, many would shake their heads in disbelief. How can this be? What is really missing here?
As I pondered on this strange phenomenon years ago, the Lord offered me some insight. In essence, their lives are yet in great need of being perfected thru the culture and power of the life of sonship in Christ. Many will happily claim the blessings and passionately exercise the power of the gifts of the Spirit of Christ, yet in ignorance and in misguided zeal also will leave the seed of His life of perfection in a waste land. The result? A wild grape. An orphan in heart and in ways of life.
For such, it seems that the culture of divine order or divine wisdom that is sourced from and purposed at divine love ever remains in distant future or in a blurred state, or if you willing, like a promised land always further down the road.
Many, to their loss, Jesus eventually would despise and reject:
“I never know you! You evil-doers (sons of lawlessness).”
The distinction of the fate of the rich young ruler and Peter when facing a choice of their life time is huge: one is stuck in his lifeless tradition, the other is continually being taught by the Lord.
In man’s eyes, they are almost the same if not rather deeming Peter in an more unfavorable light. But in the eyes of God, one is self-deluded and is serving himself, the other is led by and is serving Him. One is despised (disfavored, displeasing, not blessed, or rejected) by God; the other is loved and is considered as worthy (tested and proved) of His blessings. God’s own verdict: Esau is never His son; but Jacob is. And as a result, Jacob becomes Israel, a prince or a son of God.
In essence, from the state of a slave or an orphaned heart to genuine sonship, this is our true Passover in Christ Jesus.
“Then those who feared the Lord talked with each other, and the Lord listened and heard. A scroll of remembrance was written in his presence concerning those who feared the Lord and honored his name.
“On the day when I act,” says the Lord Almighty, “they will be my treasured possession. I will spare them, just as a father has compassion and spares his son who serves him.
And you will again see the distinction between the righteous and the wicked, between those who serve God and those who do not.”
(Malachi 3:16-18 NIV)