CLAIM YOUR INHERITANCE

 

Read Luke 15:11-32

 

It was a pity that this younger brother took the share of the inheritance that was coming to him and wasted it. But it's more pitiful to see what the older brother does with his inheritance: nothing. He has it but he doesn't do anything with it.

 

The younger brother went out and blew it.

The older brother stayed home and sat on it.

 

That whole farm where the older brother lived and where he worked every day like a slave was his. "All that I have is yours", said the father. But you'd never know it.

 

"Lo, these many years I have served you and I never disobeyed your command", says the older son. And how! ....served his father like a slave. He had less freedom, less joy, than any of the hired servants.

 

"You never gave me a kid that I might make merry with my friends."

"Gave you a kid? Son, how many times have I told you the flock is yours.

  All that I have is yours."

 

What good does it do to be born of God,

                                   to be an adopted daughter/son of God,

                                   to be anointed with the Spirit of God if you still keep walking around like a slave and an outcast? That's exactly the shape so many of us are in. We're like that older brother.

 

You'd never know that we're sons and daughters of God – all the riches of Heaven at our disposal – and we sit and sulk and lament our poverty.

 

No wonder Paul prays for the believers in Ephesus that they might have the eyes of their hearts enlightened.

 

That you may know what is the hope to which he has called you.

What are the riches of his glorious inheritance in the saints and what is the immeasurable greatness of his power in us who believe.

 

Know what your hope is, and

           what your riches are, and

           what your power is so you won't be sitting on these blessings like the older brother of the prodigal. So you'll live that hope and use those riches and exercise that power to the glory of God.

 

And how many people reading this who have tasted the inheritance God has given them as sons and daughters, and who have experienced the Spirit of God's Son crying "Abba! Father!" in their hearts and yet they're back in slavery.

 

Fear,

defeat,

discouragement,

self-pity,

envy,

 anger, rule their hearts, while they keep going around in circles on their little religious railroad track like the train under the Christmas tree.

 

Listen again to God's word:

 

When we were children, we were slaves to the elemental spirits of the universe. But when the time had fully come, God sent forth his Son, born of woman, born under the law to re­deem those who were under the Law that we might receive adoption as sons.

And because you are sons, God has sent the Spirit of his Son into our hearts crying, "Abba! Father!" So through God, you are no longer a slave but a son. And if a son, then an heir.

 

The farm is yours. All the riches of God are at your disposal. All the power of God rests upon you. So, start living like an heir of God.

 

1.   Live as a son or daughter by breaking clear of all bondage.

 

Be bound to nothing but the Father's love and the Father's will.

 

Before you were adopted as a son of God through the blood of the Lamb, you couldn't help being bound to the elemental spirits of the universe. You were plagued by the same fears, and the same covetousness, and hang-ups that have bound men and women since the day Adam was driven out of the garden.

 

But now by the power of the Cross of Jesus you're free! You belong to God not to mammon,

not to things,

not to the kingdom of lust,

not to dope,

not to booze,

not to sex,

not to that crowd of old friends, but to God. And because you belong to God you have the power to exercise dominion over every spirit,

                                     every thought,

                                     every temptation that's trying to bring you back

                                                            into bondage!

 

Thou shalt tread upon the lion and the adder, the young lion and the dragon shalt thou trample under foot.

 

Those gates of brass have to break. Those bars of iron must yield because God through his Only Begotten has made you a son, a daughter, has in Jesus put all things under your feet, has made you more than a conqueror through him who loves you.

 

If there's a cloud hanging over your head today – command it to leave.

If there's a chain on your hands and feet – break out of it in the name of the King.

If there's a chimpanzee on your back – throw it off and stand up straight.

 

God has made you a son, a daughter!

 

2.       Live as a son, a daughter, by calling on the Father's name. And because you are now his offspring, God has sent the Spirit of his Son into our hearts crying, "Abba! Father!".

 

Notice the prodigal all through the parable keeps using that word "Father".

 

"Father, give me the share of the property that falls to me.

How many of my father's hired servants have bread enough to spare."

I will arise and go to my father and say, "Father, I have sinned against Heaven and before you".

 

Father, father, father.

 

But the older brother never once uses the word. He doesn't say "Father" – he just says, "You".

 

Lo, these many years I have served you and I never disobeyed your command, yet you never gave me a kid that I might make merry with my friends. But when this son of yours (notice he doesn't say "my brother", he says "this son of yours") came who has devoured your living with harlots, you killed for him the fatted calf.

 

This man made himself a stranger in his father's house. A stranger to his father – a stranger to his brother. The father didn't do this to him, he did it to himself.

 

Now God put the Spirit of his Son into your heart to teach you to say "Father" so say it... ''Father!"

 

You're a son or a daughter of the most wonderful father there ever could be. There is no more beautiful word in the language when it is used toward him; Father!

 

"Father, you're so good!"

"Father, thank you for this bread in my hands!"

"Father, praise be to your name!"

 

There's no end to it. And every time you call on his name he answers in unspeakable love.

You couldn't say that word – there was no such thing as a human being truly calling God Father until Jesus shed his blood and brought us into the Father's House. So make the most of it now – call on that blessed name. Keep it on your lips and in your heart day and night.

 

Our Father who art in Heaven, hallowed be thy name....

How much more shall the Heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit....

 

Father, Father, Father.

 

3.   Work the Father's farm, not as a slave, but as a daughter, a son.

 

The riches of God are at your disposal – not the riches of this world. The riches of God which are gold re­fined by fire: wisdom, revelation, knowledge, counsel from God – beside these riches, the riches of earth are just so many rusty nails.

 

All you need to do is lift up your heart to the Father and ask and you get wisdom.

 

If any of you lacks wisdom, let him ask God who gives to all men generously and without reproaching and it will be given him.

 

You don't know how you're going to cope with a certain situation. You don't know what you're going to do about a certain problem. Draw on the riches of God. Call upon the Father for that refined gold and he'll give it to you!

 

And the power of God is yours too. Not just for your deliverance from bondage, but for your ministry to others – to deliver others, to bring in that harvest.

 

Whatever you bind on earth will be bound in Heaven.

Whatever you loose on earth will be loosed in Heaven.

Behold I have given you authority over all the power of the enemy.

Be strong in the Lord and in the power of his might.

 

We may have to pound on the enemy's door for a while before it falls, but it will fall.

We may get bruised and bloody, but we are more than conquerors through him who loved us.

 

So, we don't give up

      we don't get discouraged,

      we don't become luke-warm. We go forth in his power and win victories that belong to the sons and daughters of God. We bring men and women from darkness to light and from the power of Satan to God.

 

Perhaps you're saying, "But I'm not worthy to be a son or daughter, after all I've done. I'm satisfied to be a hired servant."

 

When the prodigal came home he knew that he didn't de­serve to be a son and he had planned to ask his father to treat him as one of the hired servants. But before the young man could get the words out; "Treat me as one of your hired servants", the father interrupted him,

 

"Bring quickly the best robe and put it on him! Put a ring on his hand and shoes on his feet! This is my son come home!"

 

"Father, I don't deserve to be anything but a hired servant", you say. But God has made you a son/daughter through the blood of the Lamb.

 

"You are my daughter. You are my son!"

 

He puts a robe on you, a ring on your hand, shoes on your feet. Your bondage is over.

 

 

"Go out and work those harvest fields as princes and princesses of Heaven.

 

Lo, I anoint you with the same Spirit by which I raised my Only Begotten from the dead.

 

My wisdom shall be your riches; my joy shall be your strength. And in the name and Spirit of my Son Jesus, you will go and bring forth fruit that will abide forever."

 

 

 

 

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