SEP 3 - You're a Son/Daughter First
16 When He had been baptized, Jesus came up immediately from the water; and behold, the heavens were opened to Him, and He saw the Spirit of God descending like a dove and alighting upon Him. 17 And suddenly a voice came from heaven, saying, “This is My beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased.”
Matthew 3:16-17 NKJV
1 Then Jesus was led up by the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil. 2 And when He had fasted forty days and forty nights, afterward He was hungry. 3 Now when the tempter came to Him, he said, “If You are the Son of God, command that these stones become bread.”
Matthew 4:1-3 NKJV
I briefly shared about this in our last General D12/TEAM NIGHT meeting but I felt like highlighting it in our groups because it’s so important for us, not only to know this truth but LIVE by this truth.
Carry this message forward, leader.
Jesus had a personal encounter with God and the Holy Spirit, he saw a dove descending over him and then God audibly spoke over him saying:
This is my son
And I’m so proud of him.
Before any miracle, before any healing or supernatural movement. Before he shared the gospel with anybody, God loved him and was proud of him.
How crazy would it be to sign up to join a soccer team, or a volleyball team and they hand you a trophy, a championship t-shirt and a bowl of ice cream?! That’s so opposite of what we know here on earth.
Worldly love feels like it has to be earned, it takes time. Even dating and relationships, you have to invest time, ideas, make plans and then hopefully it ends in love. But God’s love is the opposite.
Before we do anything, God loves us and he’s proud of us.
This is so important because it eliminates performance based Christianity. God doesn’t love you because you pray more than the other person. God loves you because you want to talk to him.
It’s the first thing the devil is going to come for, he’s going to attack your identity. The minute you take a spiritual fall, the moment you fail and disappoint others or even yourself. The enemy is going to come for your sonship/daughtership. He’s not going to come for your leadership. He doesn’t care about what ministry you serve in. He’s going to come for your identity.
If you can remember that you are a son or a daughter, the enemies attacks will very quickly lose effect.
10 Then Jesus said to him, “Away with you, Satan! For it is written, ‘You shall worship the Lord your God, and Him only you shall serve.’ ”
11 Then the devil left Him, and behold, angels came and ministered to Him.
Don’t let the devil tell you who you are, just remind him who God is.
How often do you keep in mind that you are a son/daughter of God first?
Has the enemy attacked your identity recently? Is there anything you learned.
What do you feel when you hear that God is proud of you?