Son or Slave?

Proverbs 23:7 … as he thinks in his heart, so is he …  (NKJV)

What we think, speak, then do, is of huge importance.  Our thinking determines more than we think — if you get my drift.

The adage is true: thoughts lead to actions.  Actions lead to habits. Habits lead to character.  And character leads to destiny.  It all started with thoughts.

John Maxwell says, “Our thoughts determine or destiny.  Our destiny determines our legacy”.  (Wow!  Now there’s a challenging thought!).  He derived that from a quote by James Allen;

“You are today where your thoughts have brought you.  You will be tomorrow where your thoughts take you”.

Our upbringing, our environment, the people we hang out with all affects our lives, because of the impact they have on our thinking.  Our thinking is shaped for better or for worse by those things.

Consider the Israelites.  They had been in slavery for so many years that they became conditioned to not having enough, to barely having enough.  When Pharaoh got upset with Moses, he told his foremen to have the Israelites make the same amount of bricks without the hay and straw being provided for them.

I’m sure the Israelites prayed, ‘God, please, helps us to make our quotas.  God, please, helps us to find the supplies that we need’.  In itself a good prayer.

But they needed a different view, different thinking to pray differently.

They prayed from a slave mentality, from a limited mind-set.  Instead of praying to be freed from their oppressors, they were asking to become better slaves. Instead of praying for what God promised them, the land flowing with milk and honey, they prayed that God would help them function better in their dysfunction.

Sadly, we do just the same.

The Prodigal son (See Luke 15:11-32) when returning to his father, had his speech all rehearsed.  He was ready to serve his father, as a hired servant.  The meaning of the word ‘servant’, carries the meaning of even less than a permanent lowest paid worker.  It means a contract worker.  So, no job security.

But his father didn’t allow him to get those words out.  The son asked for forgiveness, that’s appropriate.  The son confessed his sin, that’s appropriate.  But he wasn’t able to get the words out, “treat me like one of your hired servants”.

He was thinking like a servant, not a son.  Notice thought that the father never accepted him as a servant, but only as a son.

How often do we pray like a servant, and not like a son, a daughter of God?

When our thinking is different, our prayers will be different, because we can change our thinking.

We need to see ourselves as God sees us and pray from that revelation.  (It may take a revelation of who we truly are in Christ, to change our prayer life).  We need to agree with what God has done through the Cross.  We need to understand the full work of redemption, how God sees us as righteous in Christ, how God values us.  Then we can pray and serve God not as a slave or a servant, but as a son and daughter of God!

Let’s not pray to function better in our dysfunction.  Let’s not pray to make our slavery better. Let’s pray the promises.

Let’s see ourselves as sons and daughters of the most-High God, as the first and not the last, as the favoured of God, as God’s masterpiece, as carrying the seeds of greatness, as talented, victorious, confident, attractive, healthy, as anointed to be me!

That’s very healthy thinking.  Surely that’s Philippians 4:8 thinking.

When we think and pray like that — well just get ready for good stuff and God stuff to break out on your left and on your right!