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Receiving Dignity From Your Heavenly Father

July 6, 2018 by Robert Hartzell

Receiving Dignity From Your Heavenly Father

Sonship-Themed Movies

Many movies actually display a sonship theme. There’s usually a part where the hero has reached rock bottom and he is ready to do anything to fight his way out of the pit. I love this! The mentor emerges but will not immediately agree to help. He tests him first. How badly does he want help? Will he really push past the pain? Will he really be teachable enough to do anything instructed? The mentor tests to see if the person will choose to move out of a victim mentality.

God is Not Co-dependent

In Exodus 15 God tells the Israelites that He will continually keep them cleansed from the diseases of Egypt if they will heed His voice and do what is right. Then, God intervenes right in front of them and cleanses the waters of Marah, demonstrating what He will do on their behalf.

Receiving Dignity From Your Heavenly Father

God is demonstrating how He will be a coach, a mentor to them, to help them move from an Egyptian slave mentality, into becoming an army that can fight battles and take the Promised Land. He will mentor, but only as they do their part.

Empowerment

So often we want the magic pill, the quick fix, the right guy with the right anointing to lay hands on us and cast out our problems. However, so frequently God is asking us to grow and mature, to partner with Him, to take responsibility for where we are at and work through it, not play the victim who’s waiting to be rescued.

This is hugely empowering! As He mentors us like this and we co-laborer with Him, we are no longer those victims needing to be set free. We are becoming sons in the Father’s house. Sons (and daughters) that know how to take responsibility, find available resources, and fight battles. Sons that have the resources and backing of our Father.

In sonship we become more than conquerers in Christ!

Filed Under: Sonship Tagged With: codependent, Sonship, Victim Mentality

Core Personal Growth Concepts to Move Ahead in Your Life

March 1, 2015 by Robert Hartzell

Initiative – Faith and Hope to Take Steps and Move Forward

What if you had the power to take initiative in any area of your life?

  • Think of how effective you could be in reaching your destiny and being an influence for the kingdom of God.
  • Think of how much you could get done, how many goals you could reach.

In many ways this is what it means to live in Sonship before God.

Personal Growth Concepts From a Different Viewpoint

Ted Ward in his book, Living Overseas, gives some powerful insights into how personal growth occurs. He uses some psychological concepts but these are really Biblical principles presented in a different language. Seeing things from another viewpoint can open up new understanding for us. Whether we live overseas or not, these principles explain why we do or do not experience personal growth.

In 1999 I was new on the mission field. I went to the Pollo Rey, a fast-food fried chicken place. The problem was, there was nothing fast about it. After I had placed my order I waited and waited. Others came, ordered, even received their food while I still waited! I finally blew up and started yelling for a manager in very broken Spanish. It wasn’t a pretty scene.

Faith Versus Legalism

Ward says that living in a third-world country forces us to face growing in our awareness, patience, and acceptance of people who are different. In these situations we get stretched into facing ways we struggle with being authoritarian (or Biblically speaking, legalistic). Social psychologists measure issues with authoritarianism (legalism) by:

  • A tendency toward black-and-white judgment; things are either right or wrong, no grace.
  • A tendency to be suspicious or negative about anyone or any idea that is different than what we know.
  • The insistence on systems of absolute obedience.

At Pollo Rey, the whole event really depicted, “Give me good service or my look of irritation will reveal my intolerance of your behavior.” This certainly is not an expression of Sonship – as a son of my Heavenly Father, my time is in His hands, He directs my steps and works all things for good. In Sonship I can rest in faith and hope regardless of what I face and treat others with love and kindness.

Locus of Control as a Root of Faith Versus Legalism

Locus of Control has to do with where we believe the power lies. In other words, what is causing us to do what we do. There is both Internal and External locus of control.

Internal locus of control is the values and standards we have internalized that guide us; things like acceptance, grace, self-control, and team work.

For example, consider childhood development. If a child is given some age-appropriate autonomy (self-government) he learns to make decisions and face the corresponding consequences. Then, as he matures, he becomes more self-directing. Internal control leads to personal responsibility. This is Hebrews 12:5-11 in a different language.

External control is those things we look to from other people. A victim mentality expresses external control – my life is controlled by others who are seen as the ones who really count. Whether I succeed or fail depends on them. So we think, why try? It doesn’t matter what I do (initiative issues): “No matter how hard I study, the teacher is just against me.”

The Children of Israel wandering in the wilderness are a great example of this external locus of control. They were constantly looking for someone to help them without taking any initiative themselves. External locus of control is fostered in abusive homes were the child grows up victimized and feeling powerless, however, we can all struggle with this at some level.

Personal Growth ConceptsA person who has “never grown up” always places blame and responsibility on others. So people can push their buttons and “control” them easily. In this state of wounding, a person takes little or no initiative and is tossed by every wind of those persons who are seen as important.

Personal Growth Concepts

Other cultures and difficult people at work or church can help clarify the differences of internal and external controls. We all have “external religious patterns” that we follow—what we feel displays a Christian, what constitutes morality–the “right” way to do things. Conflict, however, can allow these controls to be stripped away.

“The externals of religiousness tend to decline as internal control increases. If there is no substance underlying the externals, it could be said that such a person could lose his religion.”

“For people who value taking responsibility, being accountable and being self-directing, the stretching of capacity for internal control will be seen as an important plus. Thus the intercultural sojourn and it’s stretching of one’s internal control tendency and capability are eagerly to be desired.” – Ward, T. (1984). Living Overseas. NY: Free Press

Would you consider your own life today? Are you on the wonderful, life-time journey of faith moving from your head to your heart? Are you wanting those internal controls that God writes in our hearts instead of external forces pushing your buttons?

No one has fully arrived. Meditating on the concepts here will give you fresh ways to examine and improve your forward movement to live in the Promised Land as an overcomer!

 

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    Filed Under: Sonship Tagged With: Personal Growth Concepts, Sonship, Victim Mentality

    Accessing Gods Provision As Sons

    January 26, 2013 by Robert Hartzell

    Accessing Gods Provision As Sons

    God is a Father that will never leave us, it is His good pleasure to give us the kingdom, we are with Him always and all that He has is ours. There is a life of serenity, of being daily grounded in His love regardless of circumstances. There is a place of living as an overcomer rather than with a slave mentality like the children of Israel in the wilderness. However, the big question is, how do we access it?Accessing Gods Provision As Sons

    Here’s a profound truth – to receive help we have to be able to ask for it. Nevertheless, the asking can feel really vulnerable, even like something is wrong with me or I have a weakness. Why is this a struggle for so many?

    Growing up with an angry father communicated clearly to me the three rules of a dysfunctional family: don’t trust, don’t talk, and don’t feel. There was no model for asking for help. Having a problem meant either ridicule or punishment. So if I can’t ask for help and receive it in a healthy way, what’s left? A victim mentality, complaining, self-pity, acting helpless, and acting out.

    The way up is the way down. It is not getting stronger but getting weaker that brings the victory.

    2 Corinthians 12–“My grace is sufficient for you, My power is made perfect in weakness. Therefore I will boast about my weaknesses, so that Christ’s power may rest on me. That is why I delight in weaknesses… For when I am weak, then I am strong.”

    Filed Under: Sonship Tagged With: Victim Mentality

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