The Realization of Divine Sonship
Greetings and good morning brothers and sisters. This is Dr. James Perry continuing with our series
where we seek to explore the deeper meanings of our relationship with Jesus Christ. Over the years,
the heavenly Father has revealed many revelations of spiritual truth to me, and I want to share them
with you. This morning we seek to understand and accept the realization of divine sonship.
And now, sit back and listen to today's message.
The Realization of Divine Sonship
"Behold, what manner of love, the Father hast bestowed upon us, that we should be called the
sons of God." First John, Chapter 3, Verse 1.
Brothers and sisters, the greatest truth that can be realized in this life is the realization of divine
sonship. This realization is brought about by the faith acceptance of God as our Father and
recognizing our brothers and sisters. Intellectual acceptance does not bring about this supreme
realization in the flesh, though our minds are the gateway to our souls where such a magnificent truth
is realized. Faith is more than an intellectual acceptance of truth; it is the wholehearted embrace of
such a truth. The wholehearted acceptance of something as true brings about an attitudinal and
emotional change and as well as a change in conduct. It also brings about a change in the value
system as well as the purpose for living. Faith when admonished by wisdom and validated by
experience is the surest way to realize spiritual reality. But let us first examine the problem of
deception and its pitfalls and then we shall be in a better position for discerning truth. For we know
that while faith can embrace error as we see everyday, error can never be realized. Only true spiritual
reality can be realized.
Deception or falsehood can be external or internal. External falsehood begins when someone
knowingly presents something to an individual that he knows is untrue. This is done to cause the
victim to change or modify his emotional attitude and subsequently his behavior toward the false
thing. Deception is made possible due either to lack of wisdom or ignorance and by the expectation
of the satisfaction of some desire that the person is desirous of seeing realized. These factors make
such a strong appeal to the desire and will that the deceived accepts something as being real that is
not a true reality. When the believer of the lie accepts the deceptions and changes his emotional
attitude and thus his behavior, he finds out very shortly that he has been lied to. This is because he
cannot realize what has been promised. This can be seen dramatically when some one swindles a
person out of his money in exchange for supposedly something that the person values such as
property. This is an external deception.
Now in self deception, the principles of deception still apply except the person is deceiving himself.
The deception takes place internally rather than externally. The self lies to itself. There is no outside
influence involved in the deception. This self deception occurs for two reasons. First, the person may
be desirous of achieving some status that he or she has not earned or achieved. Thus they portray to
themselves a lie, and then they hide this fact from themselves and go on to act as if it were true. But
a lie can never be true. In the other instance, the person may want to avoid a disagreeable reality so
that this avoidance of the reality becomes the motive for the self deception. Thus the person changes
their attitude towards the reality and their conduct also. Now the person may be wholly sincere in
doing this but may be in error. Time will reveal the error and the self deception. But what is the
defense against self deception since the person may not be aware of it? The best defense toward
safeguarding against self deception is to be willing to embrace all truth no matter how disagreeable
and to be willing to follow this truth wherever it may lead.
Now this brings us to the question of divine sonship: Is the person deceived who claims divine
sonship, who claims God as his Father and man as his brother? We answer emphatically no! Despite
the fact that this is a faith state, no deception is involved. And we reason in this way: the divine Son,
Jesus. who is the Son of God by direct creation, took on the form of flesh and revealed these truths
to mankind as a Son of man and a Son of God. Surely he is in the position to know. But how do we
know that Jesus was indeed the Son of God who was also the son of man? There is a historical basis
for the existence of Jesus as the son of man. We know that he actually lived. But what about the
claim of his being the Son of God? Well we have a record that claims he rose from the dead, and he
was seen by more than 500 people, so the record testifies. It is unlikely that such a large number of
people who claimed to have seen him after his death on several occasions could be wrong in what
they saw.
But what about those who are living in the present? Is their any evidence that we can use to
substantiate this claim of his being the Son of God? Is there any way that we can tell if he in fact rose
from the dead? Yes there is. While living on earth, he made two claims that would allow anyone
living in any age to know that he is the Son of God and to know that they are the sons of God as well.
He said that if we accept this divine sonship, really embrace it, we would immediately began to
perform in a supernatural way. We would begin to perform as a son of God in our attitudes and
behaviors. Moreover, we would begin to bear the fruits of the spirit--the character fruits that all
divine sons bear. Immediately would we begin to show forth love, faith, goodness, gentleness,
meekness, temperance, long suffering, peace, and joy. Not only would these qualities be shown when
we are not under stress but would shine bright even in adversity. This is the supernatural aspect of
the fruits of the spirit because while we may in and of ourselves display these qualities under ideal
conditions, that is when we are not stressed, it is very difficult for us to display these qualities when
stressed.
The other evidence of Jesus being the Son of God is that those who really believe (have faith)
dedicate their lives to doing the Father's will. They really subordinate their will to the Father's will.
This is not a deception since a subjective reality creates an objective reality that all can witness. Thus
we conclude that self deception is possible in other areas of life, but when it comes to divine sonship
with God, no deception, self or otherwise, is possible.
And though we are still the sons of man and the sons of God while in the flesh, we have learned to
recognize and execute the divine urges as well as the human urges. We know that these urges are
actualized by our will through our desires. If we desire to actualize the divine urges which are true,
beautiful, and good, we choose the Father's will. It is a well known truth that what we truly desire,
and the Father wills, is. We are still the sons of man, and as the sons of man we are subject to all the
temporal vicissitudes of life, which include suffering, pain and mortal death. But as the sons of God,
we are subject to none of the vicissitudes of life, for we are eternal and live in the eternal and
spiritual universe, a universe that is friendly to us. And we live in the presence of our heavenly
Father and his Son. And it is this ability to choose the divine urges that causes us to realize our
divine sonship. And this realization of divine sonship fills our souls with unspeakable joy and peace,
for no longer is there any doubt to our destiny or our status. That is forever settled, settled eternally.
And we thank and worship the heavenly Father and his Son who made all of this possible.
This concludes today's message on understanding and accepting the realization of divine sonship.
We hope you find something in this message to ponder and pray about as you go about your day.
Until next time, this is Dr. James Perry.
Inspirational Messages
By Dr. James Perry
Your Kingdom Come, Your Will Be Done!
The Realization of Divine Sonship
