Finally Together!

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(Romans 8:16) The Spirit Himself bears witness with our spirit that we are children of God.

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His witness, how do we recognize it? In the previous verse, He reveals that. From deep within us, He excites us to exclaim to God: "Father!" He knows and is always reminding us in ways that excite the hope, the insight, the dream, the desire that God is good: He is merciful, gracious, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness, forgiving iniquity and transgression, and (by no means) clearing the guilty (Exodus 34:6-7). When our spirits respond to acknowledge that, we--according to these verses--are speaking in perfect harmony with the Holy Spirit (Galatians 4:16).

A (Psychological)

Consider the possibility of God's Holy Spirit dwelling in people. This is not schizophrenia--delusions, hallucinations (visual or auditory), disorganized speech and behavior, paranoia, and the absence of good behaviors, specifically the absence of appropriate emotions (affective flattening), poverty of speech (alogia), and decisiveness ability to have or to achieve basic goals (avolition). No, the presence and freedom of the Holy Spirit--the witness of His presence--is quite the opposite. It correlates with mental health and is evidenced by logical thinking, healthy emotions, and positive relationships (Romans 8:14-17; James 1:2-8; 2 Timothy 1:6-7; 1 Peter 3:8-16).

Consider, also, how different history (and our lives) would have been if Mary had abused or neglected Jesus. Yet that abuse of the Holy Spirit (based on the revelation of God's trinitarian relationship) is exactly what we are advised to not do: Don't quench--suffocate--Him (1 Thessalonians 5:19). Do strengthen and equip Him (1 Peter 1:13, 10-25). Don't neglect Him (1 Peter 4:7-11). As much as counselors and therapists have learned to strictly value confidentiality, we're also mandated to speak out, to voice our private concerns when we believe vulnerable people (minors, elderly, or handicapped people) have been abused, and recognizing signs of abuse is part of our training. The answer to our spiritual abuse of the Holy Spirit is to speak up, to voice with Him the things that need to be corrected in us as well as the eternal truths of God's goodness.

A (Personal)

This revelation of God as my Father--no, more than the revelation, it's in my responsive and intentional cry to Him--that I find the evidence that I'm His child. Unfortunately, many supposedly spiritual advisers advocate the reverse order: discover first that you're "god's child" (however god is defined), then you'll find your spiritual family. That's an endless, fruitless, uncertain pursuit. Once my eyes were opened, I saw that I fit perfectly into the "continuum of sonship" that He described in Luke 10. In my unrepentant, undiscerning, unredeemed state, I fluctuated between being the the wayward, independent prodigal son on some days and the foolishly self-reliant, slavishly distant elder son on other days. Even now, my constancy and hope isn't found in the fickleness of my character, but in the steadfastness of His goodness. I see my identity accurately to the extent that I correct my perception of God, my heavenly Father.

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Heavenly Father--Dad--thank You for first loving me and revealing Your goodness to me. My search for identity was endlessly confused, uncertain, and fruitless until I abandoned my fight against You. I'm so glad You proved Your long-suffering patience and mercy towards You. I'm so glad Your Holy Spirit awakened my emotions, convictions, desires, and testimony ... enough to cry out to You and discover whom You see me as being. What hope! What a relief! What encouragement! Thanks, Dad.

Axis of Fatherhood

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(Romans 3:21-24) But now the righteousness of God has been manifested apart from the law ... the righteousness of God through faith in Jesus Christ for all who believe. For there is no distinction ...

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Paul, guided by the Holy Spirit, made it clear that all people have the same need for Jesus Christ--there is no distinction between people in this regard. For centuries, Jewish lovers of God had mistakenly erected walls between their "us" and "you" (non-Jews). These Jewish Christians did not use stone, turf, or timber like Hadrian used when building the great Roman wall across northern England. No, they contended that only Jews were God's people, regardless of whether they believed in Christ. In this letter to Romans, Paul argued for a different wall: it was the wall of sin that put all humans outside of God's embrace, but Jesus' cross tore down that barrier (Ephesians 2). Anyone, therefore, who "embraces" God's Son, Jesus, gains unhindered access to Jesus' Father, Jewish or not.

A (Psychological)

Miroslav Volf, in his book Exclusion and Embrace (1996, pp. 156-165), sketches a phenomenology of embrace, which he conceived by studying Jesus' story of the Prodigal Son (Luke 15). Paralleling the wall metaphor that Paul used with the Ephesians and here with the Romans, Volf gives us insight into into God's common love for all people. Both sons in the prodigal story shattered their relationships by "un-sonning" themselves and "un-fathering" their father. The prodigal's departure from home wasn't an act of separation required for the formation of a distinct identity; it was an act of exclusion (like his brother's) of pulling out of relationship and subsequent responsibilities--creating a spacial and moral wall even more distancing than a stone wall.

Paradoxically, by pushing others out, the prodigal found himself away from himself and the elder brother found himself estranged (by his own doing) from his father. Both sons defined their identities along moral axis: worthy or unworthy, good or bad. The Father kept redefining their identities along relational lines: lost or found, dead (broken relationship with me) or alive (restored relationship). Although the father rejected the misrepresentations of his heart, he didn't deny the damaging effects of his sons' behaviors and views. He kept reconfiguring the home order without destroying it so they could maintain it as an order of embrace rather than exclusion. He refused to make moral rules the final authority regulating exclusion and embrace. His behavior was governed by one fundamental, unchanging rule: relationship has priority over all rules. Because of the cross, Heaven's gate is eternally open (Revelation 21:25).

A (Personal)

Do I see my "good works" merely as God's assignments for me as though I were a solitary laborer isolated from others? Instead, do I see my primary task as being in relationship with my Savior and my Heavenly Father? That changes everything! If I am Christ's ambassador (2 Corinthians 5), I'll see relationships in a whole new light, a whole new priority.

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O Lord, help me to reorder my world along relational lines. Help me to see myself and others from Your loving, relational perspective where every relationship is valuable, every soul is linked to mine and is worthy the price of reconciliation.