Growing in Sonship

By Jessica Onsaga

To grow or not to grow? This is the question every believer is faced with, but most of us don't recognize the question is even being asked! Staying a baby in Christ was never the plan. In this two-part book, Jessica delves into the process of how to grow in faith and maturity in Christ, and how to relate

• Language: English
• Publisher: As He Is T/A Seraph Creative
• Release date: Sep 13, 2023
• ISBN: 9781958997444

Book preview

Growing-in-Sonship-Cover-UPLOAD.jpg

This series is dedicated to the sons of God who will say YES to Yahweh no matter the cost. May these books help you grow in sonship and maturity in your walk with Christ.

INTRODUCTION

This is the second book of The Sonship Series. The series was written to help believers grow and mature in their walk with Yahweh! Reading the first book in the series, The Foundation, would be helpful in starting out as it lays the theological base upon which all the others are written. If you don’t start with the first book, you may not understand the framework that all the books in the series are built on. The other books in the series can be read in any order, but the tools taught in The Foundation are especially important for this book.

The Sonship Series is intended to help you start a conversation with Yahweh and go deeper into Him. I won’t quote every verse or fully explain every topic I write about. That is intentional. I hope that you search for the things I share so that you can discover them for yourself. The goal is that you bring everything you learn and read in this book to Jesus. He will sift them and show you how this information can equip you in your personal journey with Him. These words will only become more head knowledge if you do not allow Jesus to show you the heart revelation in them. Head knowledge is anything you have learned about Jesus but don’t truly know or believe in your heart (soul). Head knowledge is dangerous because it inoculates people against the truth. They think they know the truth, but they don’t know Truth Himself. True transformation happens as we encounter and agree with Truth in our soul. This is why learning to abide in Jesus is vital for sons of God to mature and grow. The Sonship series is set up to give you just enough information to make you hungry for more. I want you to go and seek Jesus about everything that is said in these books. As we seek Him, we become more like Him.

Yahweh’s desire for us is to grow in sonship and maturity in our relationship with Him. We all start out as babies in Christ, but most Christians STAY babies their entire lives. There is so much more for us than just salvation. Beyond our own healing and restoration, the world is literally dying for the sons of God to rise up and release Heaven on Earth. In this book, we will explore the co-verses in the gospel and learn how to relate to the earth as sons of God. This will start us on a journey of learning how to grow and mature in Christ. Good things are in store!

Chapter One - IT’S A CO-GOSPEL

It changes everything when we realize that the moment we got saved, we instantly became ONE with Jesus. This co-reality is where we now live. Co-crucified. Co-risen. Co-seated. Co-heirs. Co-laboring. Co-reigning. It’s a CO-gospel! There is depth and mystery to be explored in the co-reality we are in. Anytime there is co as a prefix to a word, it means: with, together, or jointly. You truly are never alone. It is literally impossible! I highly recommend you meditate on these co-verses we are about to dive into, and engage Yahweh about them!

I will scratch only the surface of the mystery of these co-verses in hopes that you explore them with Jesus! The first three co-identities (co-crucified, co-risen, and co-seated) happened the instant we chose Jesus to be our Lord and Savior. These co-identities are part of what I will call the salvation co-co’s. The next co-identity we will discuss is co-heirs. Co-heirs I define as the maturing co-co because it changes our relationship with Yahweh. Then, we will dive into the heart of this book: co-laboring and co-reigning! These last two I call the sonship co-co’s!. The sonship co-co’s are the reason for writing this book, but before we can dive into them, first we must touch on the others briefly...

THE SALVATION CO-CO’S: Co-Crucified, Co-Risen, & Co-Seated

CO-CRUCIFIED

Galatians 2:20 (BSB) I have been crucified with Christ, and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me. The life I live in the body, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself up for me.

Jesus never asks us to do something that He didn’t already do first! THAT is a powerful concept! Jesus gave up everything to come to earth as a human. Not only did He give up Heaven, but He also chose to come weak and vulnerable as a baby, just like us. Jesus made Himself vulnerable to us in heart and body. What kind of God chooses to give up everything AND come as a defenseless baby to save His creation? Then to make it more incredible, He KNEW He would face a brutal and horrifying death. It’s astounding the more you think about it.

So, Jesus came first. He went through everything first before asking us to do it. I am sure you are wondering about the people who lived before Jesus came. How was Jesus first? Jesus was slain at the foundation of the earth. There’s a mystery hidden in Jesus’ living outside of time and space! Jesus does tell us that He is the beginning AND the end. The Alpha and Omega. It’s a time-bending concept, bigger than our pea brains can handle. Yahweh makes sure that we will hear bizarre things. We then have the choice to either embrace mysteries or shut down and build a theology around our shutdown. For example, the Bible says we are healed—past tense. That’s bizarre since our bodies are not currently healed. We can embrace the mystery and grow our soul, OR we can shut down and build a theology that says God doesn’t heal anymore. There are many, many mysteries and unorthodox things in the Bible and in the spiritual realm. Will you allow your box to be broken and your soul to grow, or will you shut down anytime you hear something outside your box? What I am submitting to you, is that Jesus came first, suffered first, died first, rose first, and ascended first. He’s a leader that sets the example by leading, not barking orders. It’s truly incredible!

After Jesus accomplished all of that, we are invited to follow His lead and example. The first step to follow is co-crucifixion. To be healed and saved, we have to first die. Yes, you read that correctly! We are part of the upside-down Kingdom which is full of mystery and totally conflicts with how this world works! Our sin-filled hearts must die for us to be transformed. Sin causes us to pull away from God. So how could we possibly become one with Yahweh if we are pulling away from Him? Our sin nature has to die.

Thankfully, killing our sin nature isn’t as gruesome as what Jesus endured. To be crucified with Christ, we are choosing to yield ourselves to God. That’s it. Co-crucifixion is the killing of our sinful nature, our flesh. We do not endure a physical death like Jesus did, but rather it is the death of our sinful nature. Our flesh is the sinful part of our soul that rejects God. We will be talking about surrender in depth later in this book; for now, just understand that fully surrendering to Yahweh kills the flesh. That is why we are called to pick up our cross DAILY.

Luke 9:23 (BSB) Then Jesus said to all of them, If anyone wants to come after Me, he must deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow Me.’"

If we don’t choose to kill our sin nature daily, then our sin nature will creep back in, and we will be back to square one. How silly would it be to take a breath of air once and expect it to sustain you? But this is what lots of Christians do every day. They get saved and think their sin nature will just go away magically, OR they just believe that they will be stuck in