Have you ever heard “What you don’t know can’t hurt you”? Well, that’s a lie. What you don’t know can absolutely hurt you. It can kill you. Not knowing fire is hot can result in much pain and possible death. Not knowing kingdom truth will severe you from the joy of fellowship with God. It will disconnect you from the abundant life available in Jesus Christ. The motto “ignorance is bliss” is naive. Ignorance is not bliss in the kingdom. Truth brings freedom. Freedom doesn’t come from a failure to educate yourself in the ways of God.
A kingdom principle that many of us overlook, much to our detriment, is that our vision and revelation of God corresponds directly to the way we receive and handle people. Our reception of people God has sent into our lives communicates something about the way we receive God. It’s a fallacy to think we have our own thing going with God that requires no visible community of people. There’s no such thing as lone rangers in the kingdom.
Like many of us, the Pharisees assumed they could claim to love the God in heaven while rejecting the sent man, Jesus, that was standing in front of them. They liked the God who was invisible because they could make up their own rules and portray to everyone on the outside that they were committed. But when that invisible God sent someone in flesh and blood to confront their compromise, their true hearts were revealed.
If you find yourself claiming to have a great relationship with God, and, yet, resisting spiritual authority, it’s time to check your heart again. Those who have no problem receiving correction from flesh and blood have no problem receiving correction from their invisible Father. However, if you can’t hear godly counsel about relationships, time, and money, then it’s quite possible your “devotion” to the invisible Father is really something you just do on your own terms. Resistance to flesh and blood reveals resistance to the Spirit.
Remember, the way we handle sent ones into our lives reveals the way we handle the One who is sending them. Resistance reveals resistance. But reception reveals reception. As you open your heart to correction from flesh and blood, you are really opening your heart to the love of the Father guiding you in the way you should go. When you open your heart to correction from the Father, you open yourself to affirmations of sonship: “For whom the Lord loves He chastens, and scourges every son whom He receives” (Heb. 12:6). Receive spiritual fathers and mothers today, and let the affirmation of heavenly sonship invade your life, bringing freedom and abundant life.
God bless,
Jenna
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