David Lee Martin

Sonship is a whole realm of deep revelation. As with each of the ‘upgrades’ we’re covering every one of them would take a lifetime of study to comprehend and an eternity to experience. Knowing the Father is revolutionary.

Consider the prayer path Jesus laid out to His early disciples.

What profoundly simple words do we begin with?

“Our Father…”

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So this month we’re talking about prayer and specifically about the idea of upgrading your prayer life. A number of years ago, the Holy Ghost spoke to me and basically said that prayer is like a spiritual technology, and then proceeded to tell me that I needed an upgrade. Maybe it was time for me to trade in some of my old ways of approaching and understanding prayer and embrace something new or something more advanced. Yeah, God wants us to advance. He wants us to move forward.

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There is always room for us to grow and to understand him more and to be more effective. The Bible talks about effective fervent prayer. We want to see, we want to be effectual in the way that we operate in the realm of the Spirit and of course, in our relationship with the Saviour, with the Father, the Son and the Holy Ghost. It’s like a relationship that is not growing and deepening, especially one as close as your connection with God, is kind of weird. It says something not quite right with that, just in the same way as a marriage should grow richer and deeper and more full as the years go on.

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So we want to see this incredible relationship we have with God through prayer flourish week by week, month by month, year by year, moment by moment, even. We’ve spoken a little about our dual citizenship, that we are both citizens of Earth, but also we’ve been brought into a citizenship of heaven through the blood of Christ. But God’s invitation actually goes far beyond just citizenship of the heavenly Commonwealth, which in itself is remarkable. But our Daddy has gone even further than that, bringing us into his very own family. Scripture reads, now, therefore, you are no more strangers or foreigners but fellow citizens.

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There’s that word again with the Saints and of the household of God. Ephesians 2:19 and perhaps even more astounding those verses continue in him. And I’m reading from the Amplified now and in fellowship with one another, you yourselves are also being built up into this structure with the rest to form a fixed abode, a dwelling place of God in, by and through the Spirit, an abode and a dwelling place of God that we are being built together as a habitation for him to reside and abide in. He has sent the Holy Spirit, my dear brothers and sisters, to live in us, in, by and through his Spirit. He has made this possible.

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How amazing is that? Understand this in prayer. There are so many different levels that we can stand upon. We exercise our identity and we see results. But as with myself and I’m sure with you wear different hats.

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Our identity is not just a narrow this is it. I’m a father, I’m a husband. I’m a friend, I’m an acquaintance. I’m a businessman, et cetera, et cetera. There are lots of different ways in which I turn up in order to function and accomplish what I am called to do.

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And I believe it’s the same in prayer. It’s the same in the Spirit. Sometimes God will call us to embody his authority and his word and our identity in Him in one way. And then other times he’ll come and call us out in a different way. So sometimes he may call you to stand up in your divine authority in Christ and really in your role as a soldier in the army of God, declaring truth, routing the devil, plundering the stolen goods that Satan has torn from people’s lives.

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At other times, the Holy Spirit will woo you into the bridled intimacy that we see in books like the Song of Solomon and elsewhere. Just so naked and open. Yeah, your whole being feels just ravished and refreshed to the core by his love. And again, sometimes you may step into the closet and he’ll shine a light on your sonship. And of course, that goes for you daughters, too.

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The Holy Spirit will powerfully speak to you as an heir of God, chosen and appointed together with Christ. When I think about this and think about sonship, I’ve experienced some things in prayer that really drove this home to my heart. But it made me ask the question, could you ever imagine Jesus himself coming to the Father with a request and then being turned away? Now, I suspect that your answer is probably no. You can’t imagine the Father just turning Jesus away, ignoring Jesus like not hearing Him, not responding to him.

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Yet we also come as a son and a daughter every time we pray. So why is it that sometimes, maybe often? I hope not. But why do we sometimes feel that God might be reluctant to hear and answer our supplications? This whole realm of Sunshine and the revelation of Sunshine is a realm in itself that we could explore for a lifetime, and indeed we will, and far beyond that.

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But as with all of the different upgrades that we’re covering every one of them, we’re going to have an eternity to experience each one of them. And knowing our Father, knowing God as our Father, leaning in and comprehending our sonship or our Daughterhood is revolutionary. Mark these words. Knowing the Father is what is important, not just knowing about him. God is not some distant deity.

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God is up close and very, very personal. Many Christians, unfortunately, operate more like strangers and foreigners when it comes to prayer. Born again brothers and sisters really acting like orphans. Consider the prayer path that Jesus laid out through his early disciples and the prayer path that is so powerfully present for us to follow today. It begins with what words?

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Our Father, the Holy Ghost himself, we’re told, lives within us and stirs our hearts to passionately cry Abba, Father, Daddy, God Romans 815 You’ve not received the spirit of bondage against fear. You’ve received the spirit of adoption whereby we cry, whereby we cry, Abba, Father, Daddy, God. And again the same is said in Galatians Four, verse S, Romans 8:15. Galatians 4:6 says the same thing. And because you are sons and daughters, God has sent forth the Spirit of His Son into your hearts, crying Abba, Father, what an amazing place to begin.

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As children, this is how we pray. I’ve rarely seen a child who is confident of their parents love, who is shy to boldly ask for what they want. Even I, such a starkly, imperfect dad, seek every way I possibly can to bless and build my kids. Now my highest delight as a dad is to meet their needs and answer their requests with sometimes unreasonable generosity. Are they deserving of it always?

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No. But then, nor am I. How much more? Our Father in Heaven the following verses. Most of us would be familiar with these, but they are worth citing and reading in full right now.

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In prayer we ask, we seek, we knock, and our sonship does so, and gives us grounds to do so with utmost expectation. Cheque this out. Matthew seven seven to eleven. Ask and it shall be given to you. Seek and you will find.

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Knock and it will be open to you. For everyone who asks receives. He that seeks finds, and to him that knocks, it shall be opened. That’s a good place to just stop and do a little happy dance. Or what man is there of you?

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Whom, if his Son asks bread, will he give him a stone? Or if he asks a fish, will he give him a serpent? If you then, being evil by comparison to God, the Perfect One, know how to give good gifts to your children. How much more shall your Father, which is in heaven, give good gifts to them who ask Him? We need to act like sons and daughters, not like orphans.

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I think that the orphan spirit may well be the root most responsible for the endless contention and confusion experienced in the body of Christ. Insecure foundations in the hearts of God’s children really make the Devil’s job pretty easy. Now he doesn’t need even to lift a finger. As long as we are spending all of our energies comparing, competing and coveting sibling rivalries in the house of God are enough to splinter and dilute our power. Unity of heart under the Fatherhood of God as sons and daughters releases incredible power.

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These roots of Relationship Sonship roots you in security. The revelation of Sunshine is the cure to confusion. It’s a fearless foundation from which you can confidently then pray. Now, these roots of relationship, as I say, are something that you must search out and cultivate in the same way. As a strong, healthy tree has strong, healthy roots, I guess we could consider Sunship and the revelation of Sunshine as our essential root system.

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Your love for God, and even more importantly, his love for you is the root and ground of every fruit that you will ever bear in your Christian life. So I encourage you in your seeking to upgrade your prayer life, press hard into the heart of God to grasp this reality with both hands. The Bible tells us that we are able to draw near with full assurance. And this moving in to the reality and experience of sonship can honestly, sometimes be painful. It’s a journey that requires a healing of our heart, letting go of hurts forgiving taking hold of truths that sometimes seem too good to be true.

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A natural man can push away and seek to take hold of certain truths. They come too close to home. It’s easier to live in our pain than it is to allow the Father to come in and make us whole and say, this is not an easy journey for us all to take. It’s going to pose different challenges for each of us as we go through some of those with many tears. Sunships digs deep into your identity.

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But as you allow God to excavate your heart, something amazing takes place. So don’t be in a rush and don’t fall into the trap of turning prayer into something just merely transactional. You’re not coming into a corporate boardroom to convince the Trinity to acquiesce to your proposal. You’re coming to a loving Father who is eager to answer. There’s a wonderful verse in Ephesians chapter two.

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I’ll read verses 2:12 to 13. At one time you were without Christ being aliens from the Commonwealth of Israel and strangers from the covenants of promise, having no hope. And without God in the world. Now there’s an orphan spirit, if ever there is one described. But now, but now, but the butts of Scripture are some of the greatest you will ever find.

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Look for that little word B UT and you will see such transformation. But now, in Christ Jesus, you who sometimes were far off are brought near by the blood of Christ in Hebrews 1022. Let us draw near with a true heart, in full assurance of faith, and I give time and prayer to this. Let God’s love carry you from law to Grace come near. Let every resistance to this remarkable reality of your invitation into the very heart and family of God.

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Let every resistance be dissolved as you spend time in the presence of the Father, Son and Holy Ghost. It will take prayer, much prayer and it will take time, much time. These are the costly components of a powerful prayer life. Now, don’t believe for a minute that prayer is cheap. Your entrance into Grace is, of course, paid in full.

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You can add nothing to it because Jesus life was laid down for you. But really, now we are in the process of learning to lay our lives down. There is a death of the old man that needs to take place for the new man to be realised.

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This is not cheap, this is not easy. This is not just a kind of I’m going to just throw out a few haphazard prayers for a few minutes a day. You have to get into this. You have to move in, close the door on the world and really bear your heart in the presence of God. We need to lay our life down in order to taste the full benefit of a life raised from the dead.

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What is true in theory and just kind of mere bare theology must become true in our naked experience. We need to experience these truths for ourselves but let me encourage you the cost even though we’re talking about costly components of a powerful prayer life let me encourage you the cost is so little compared to the prize. Thanks for listening to today’s episode. Hopefully it was a blessing to you if it was do please consider leaving a rating in a review on whatever platform you are listening on. I also would love to encourage you to check out my new book faithful creative we’ve got a package of resources designed specifically to encourage you in your Christian creative call.

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You can check that out @ faithfulcreativebook.com and if you choose to pick it up use the promo code podcast for 50% off so you’ll get it for half price. Have a great rest of your day and God bless Jesus first everything else follows.

Your Heaven-born citizenship gives you bold entrance to the halls of Heaven in the same way that my British passport allows me to freely come and go in my natural-born homeland here on planet earth.

The rights and privileges this new conversation afford you are infinite in scope.

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You know, there are a number of different things that can block our prayer pipes, if you like. And I just want to talk about what the King James version of the Bible calls a conversation. And this is a conversation that you really don’t want to miss. I just travelled abroad. I went very recently to Slovenia. Just preaching and teaching out there on the subject of prayer, I had a really wonderful time. But as you know, when you travel from country to country, you need a passport. And as an Englishman, the passport that I hold affords me the rights and the authority of a citizen of Great Britain. It’s essentially a proof to one degree or another of my proof. It’s proof of my heritage and my identity. But as I reminded my dear Slovenian brothers and sisters when I was there, I also hold another passport and identity card that proves and ratifies my other citizenship. I have a dual citizenship, as do you. Okay. And that other passport held it aloft in the meeting that I was in is my Bible. This amazing document grants you the Covenant right to operate in two realms, the natural and the spiritual.

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And thank God, by virtue of his sacrifice on the cross, his resurrection from the dead, Jesus is Lord of both those realms. I’m at once a citizen of Earth and a citizen of heaven. Scripture says, Where does this come from? It’s in a number of different places that you find in Philippians 3:20. Specifically, we are told that our citizenship is in heaven, and then elsewhere, Jesus speaks of his followers being in the world, but not of the world. In a sense, I was in Slovenia, but not of Slovenia. Hebrews 13:14 reminds us that here on Earth, as pilgrims, as men and women, of a different realm and a different country, if you like. We have no abiding city. Our life, our hopes, our allegiance and our expectation resides somewhere else, somewhere far more enduring. I love, actually, the King James rendering of this Philippians verse. One thing just a little rabbit trail here. Looking up different verses in different translations of the Bible is just a great way to kind of unpack the truths that are hidden in there. And to a degree, I love the fact I’m actually building these thoughts on this.

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I guess in some ways, more modern translation of this citizenship is in heaven, but the old King James Version says, for our conversation is in heaven from whence we also look for the Saviour, the Lord Jesus Christ. Again, that’s Philippians 320. In the King James Version old King James And it’s from here our eternal spiritual dwelling that we exercise eternal principles, the principles of prayer. It flows. And this is why I do enjoy this more archaic rendering. It flows from a conversation we are included and invited into the administration and the extension of this heavenly homeland as well. In a sense, it’s like it’s not only our primary place of allegiance and residence, our primary citizenship, but it’s also the language that we speak. It’s very difficult to enter into a deep, meaningful conversation when you speak two entirely different languages. Yeah, but when we come into this conversation, when we come into this fellowship of the Godhead, there is a conversation taking place that we are invited to enjoy. And I think to a degree, this is why we find so many frustrated Saints, because essentially they are trying to operate in one realm on the basis of their citizenship in another.

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If we go back to my British status, I can’t properly exercise my rights or full rights as a British citizen. If I try to operate by the laws and practises of an entirely foreign country, I need to operate according to the tenets of the Constitution of the Commonwealth that I want to enforce. And that word citizenship or conversation in Philippians literally means a Constitution of a Commonwealth. Yes. And this is why prayer, I think, is so often a frustrating practise for many people. Many Christians, they roll up, if you like, with the wrong citizenship papers, expecting that natural laws can somehow produce spiritual results. In prayer, we have to know which passport to pull out when we stand at the gates, when we come into the courts of heaven, what passport do you pull from your pocket? Imagine coming there. You come to border control, and they ask for proof of citizenship to enter in and enjoy the benefits, the rights, responsibilities of the country that you want to enter. The guard on duty eyes you very carefully. You know, that where they sit in those glass boxes and kind of checking you out, looking at your passport.

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It takes a document from your hand, but all that’s on the document is some letter of recommendation from your mum or your employer, your best friend or your pastor, maybe even all of them. Maybe they all signed. It signed, sealed and delivered. They offer the assurance that you are indeed a trustworthy person and should be allowed into the country. Is that God really going to let you pass through unhindered? Yeah, I don’t think so. Yet. How often do we come to prayer with a natural mindset, relying on whatever it may be so often, maybe our good works or our efforts to take us through equally. It’s not just those who come in that religious ignorance, very sincere, but often sincerely wrong, who fall into the natural trap. Even those who are well versed in heavenly ways can really trip up the wire that entangles them and keeps them earthbound is sometimes familiarity certain principles that have worked powerfully in the past, and maybe particular forms of prayer that have yielded favourable results. Familiarity leads to just aping the emotions and the actions that worked yesterday. And there’s a subtle move from fervency to just mere emotion.

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Prayers in a sense are just parroted sometimes, maybe even with convincing enthusiasm. But in reality, it’s just hot wind. There’s no heart, real heart behind it, just soul. We need spirit praying at all times in the Spirit, we need to engage our spirit at every level of prayer, whatever kind of prayer we’re praying. And there are many kinds. That’s why it’s so exciting and such a rich area of growth and exploration, one that never ends. Let me ask a quick question as we continue this conversation. Are you sitting comfortably? Because prayer is not conducted from Earth to heaven, we often think of the guy or the girl down below, like shouting up, crying out God, help me or whatever, crying out to the living God. But really, our effective prayer is not based on earthly principles of religious rigour. Yeah. Instead, we operate from our place of heavenly authority based on this citizenship that we’ve been granted by virtue of Jesus sacrifice on our behalf. He took upon himself as humanity, so we in turn could sit with Him in heavenly places. And it’s from here, way above the fray, that true prayer actually begins and true prayer takes place.

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Scripture describes how our heavenly citizenship grants us a seat far above spiritual powers and principalities spiritually. We are seated together with Christ in heavenly places. Let me just read a couple of verses from Ephesians 2:6 and then 122 through 23. He has raised us up together and made us sit together in heavenly places in Christ Jesus, far above all, Principality, power, might, Dominion, every name that is named not only in this world but also in that which is to come and has put all things under his feet and given him to be the head over all things to the Church, which is his body, the fullness of him who fills all in all, it’s very difficult to crush Satan underfoot if we believe that he is actually over our head. Satan is not over us. We are over Him far above all power, Principality, might, and Dominion of any kind because we are seated together with Christ in heavenly places. So my question really is, where are you sitting? To which government do you give your primary allegiance and loyalty? Are you more comfortable and familiar with your heavenly home or are you shackled to this temporary residence in your brief sojourn on Earth?

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Which Kingdom do you consider to be your true home? And it’s our daily allegiances and our energetic attendance to whatever matters consumers that really revealed the answer to that question. Whatever we say, our daily life is going to show up somehow and let everyone know what’s really going on. So do ask yourself honestly, which of your citizenships do you most dearly and clearly relate to? Satan wants to block your prayer pipes if you like. He wants to keep you so vitally aware of your earthly nature and dimly ignorant of your heavenly identity and he does all he can to tie God’s people up in all sorts of sanctimonious knots, cramming their prayer pipes with the fatty Grizzle of religion. The fatty gristle of religion. Doesn’t that sound disgusting? I’ve cleaned some pipes in my time and it’s just not pretty. And that’s really how I look at all sorts of the religious antics and gymnastics that the devil wants to get people jumping through all of their Hoops. No, religion, essentially, is man vainly trying to reach God by his own efforts or behaviour. But in the real world, God has already taken the initiative.

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Thank God we don’t have to try and reach God. He has reached us. The entire gospel is about God reaching man and restoring mankind to the privileged place in his affections and in his authority. We’re told to come boldly to the throne of Grace. This is not an earthly throne that we’re talking about. It’s not an earthly throne or an earthly court that we’ve been invited to step into boldly and confidently. Essentially, instead of us in prayer saying, hey, God, come down, God himself has already said, well, no, you come up. Let’s do things. From my perspective, it’s permission to stop screaming helplessly below the clouds, hoping some distant deity will squeeze an ounce of mercy our way. The God that we serve as believers, born again men and women of God is far greater and a great deal closer to us than all of that. Your heaven born citizenship gives you bold entrance into the halls of heaven in the same way that my British passport allows me to freely come and go in my natural born homeland here on planet Earth, you have freedom of access. Hallelujah. Prayer is such a magnificent thing.

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So powerful, so real, so vital, so immediate, so engaging. As we’ve already said, how can the words boring and prayer appear in the same sentence? Certainly not real prayer. Yeah. The rights and privileges of this new conversation, this citizenship that you have been given afford, the rights and privileges that it affords you are infinite in scope, I guess, with a lot of questions today, have you been enjoying and exercising your rights as a citizen of heaven? I really, honestly, truly believe that prayer is where our true citizenship is exercised and enjoyed here on the Earth. And so come up into his presence. Come up. Remember who you are. Remember that you do have rights, you have authority, and you have all that you need. You are equipped for intimacy and victory.

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Thanks for listening to today’s episode. Hopefully it was a blessing to you. If it was do, please consider leaving a rating and a review on whatever platform you are listening on.

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I also would love to encourage you.

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To check out my new book, Faithful Creative. We’ve got a package of resources designed specifically to encourage you in your Christian creative call. You can check that out @ faithfulcreativebook.com. And if you choose to pick it up. Use the promo code podcast 50% off so you’ll get it for half price. Have a great rest of your day and God bless Jesus first everything else follows.