Consider the foreknowledge of God. It is both amazing and wonderful! God knows the end from the beginning, unlike us! Although hindsight is valuable in learning lessons, we cannot change the past, only learn from it. In the beginning, (Genesis 3:26), God created man in His own image to bring Him pleasure, to have fellowship with Him. We know that Adam fell and Jesus came to redeem fallen mankind and restore fellowship back with our Father God. But the bigger picture is the foreknowledge and purpose of God in that Jesus was the Lamb slain from before the foundation of the world! Our Heavenly Father’s foreknowledge put His master plan in place – His provision for our redemption, “For God so loved the world….” John 3:16.

Adam lost his intimate fellowship with his Heavenly Father when he fell, but when Jesus came to this earth, (the second Adam), He demonstrated the Father/Son relationship. Jesus, the Son of God, is the absoloute representation of the Father. He has His heart and His mind. He always did the things that pleased Him. He only spoke the words the Father gave Him. When His disciple, Philip, asked that Jesus would show the Father to them, He replied, “….he that hath seen me hath seen the Father…..” John 14:9. “I and my Father are one,” John 10:30. Jesus’ mind was one with His Father’s and He is our Pattern Man.

God is our Heavenly Father and we are His sons, (there are no male and female in the Spirit.) There is an orphan culture in the world and, indeed, in some of the Church, where some have experienced absent or abusive fathers, but even a “good” father cannot take God’s place. God’s plan and purpose is for us to be one with Him, just as Jesus demonstrated on earth. When Adam fell, he became an orphan, fatherless, having to provide and protect himself. In the restored relationship of the culture of a son, God is my Heavenly Father and He is my protector and provider!

Beloved, now are we the sons of God, and it does not yet appear what we shall be, but we know that when He shall appear, we shall be like Him…” 1 John 3:2. After we are born-again we begin our earthly pilgrimage in the School of the Spirit where we learn through life’s circumstances to walk in God’s ways, and through the years, if we yield to Him, we begin to mature as we recognise His workings. God will arrange circumstances to draw us out of our “orphan” culture back to sonship. This vision, this citizenship has to be lived, demonstrated and passed on to the next generation. Many people may not read a Bible, but they will most certainly read a “living epistle”.

In the natural, a man matures, leaves his father and mother, marries and has children. This process should also take place in the Spirit, (no male/female in the Spirit), but we cannot father if our heart is still bound in an orphan culture. Natural fathers can never be the final assessment, even the best ones are fallible. Our Heavenly Father is the only one whose fatherhood is infallible and complete. His love to us is immeasurable and always seeks our highest good. Sometimes we may not understand His ways, but these are just golden opportunities to trust Him on the road to maturity as sons. Galations 4:1-2 reminds us that the heir is under tutors and governors “until the time appointed of the father.” We are learning to bear to the Father’s glory, not our’s, that we may enter into, and receive, our birthright as sons, trusting and resting in the knowledge of His fatherhood, living a care free life, eternally secure, living epistles of sonship, carriers of His Presence!