“But upon mount Zion shall be deliverance, and there shall be holiness; and the house of Jacob shall possess their possessions”(Obad 1:17).
We have not even begun to scratch the surface of the package God has bundled up for each of us to inherit. In fact, we have yet to comprehend the dimensions of it. As we discovered in the meditations in the previous chapters, the Lord Jesus Christ has left each of us a goodly inheritance. This inheritance is eternal, kept in heaven but available for us to tap into in the here and now. We are to begin enjoying part of our inheritance from day to day. Not only this, we are to grow in this area as well.
Spiritual growth affects how much of our inexhaustible inheritance we are able to take advantage of today. As we grow in the walk of faith and in the revelation of knowledge of God, the amount of our inheritance we’re able to cash in on increases proportionally. First we need to know what belongs to us. Then we need faith to fill in the check and cash it from our account in the bank of heaven. As we grow in faith, in closeness with God, and in revelation knowledge, we continue to discover new aspects of our inheritance we have never touched. We are able to progressively enjoy more and more of it, and different facets of it that we’ve never known before.
We start as babes enjoying toys given us by our Father, not knowing anything about our inheritance. Toys suffice for us at that age. As we grow, we begin to understand that we can get pocket money and additional allowances that we need to buy essential things in life. He has given us all things that pertain to this life and godliness. He has made available for us more than enough benefits to make us super-rich and prosperous in this earthly life. You can consider this the proceeds or interest generated by the Inheritance He deposited for us in the Bank of Heaven. This inheritance is so vast, so huge, that the proceeds generated from it are more than enough to make each of us wealthier than Bill Gates, with a net worth comparable to the value of the Middle East oil fields. These are fringe benefits that come to us from being His heirs. The principal portion is still ahead, waiting for us to mature and enter fully into our inheritance.
Our heavenly Father’s desire is that we grow up and begin to make use of this inheritance He has allocated to us. It pains Him to see us living like beggars when just the interest on our accounts in the Bank of Heaven is worth billions of dollars. God is waiting patiently and eagerly expecting us to step into our own. He doesn’t want us, who are princes and princesses, to continue to live like slaves. He wants us to step out boldly in faith, and live every day like the King’s kids. That’s who we are.
As stated in the opening chapter of this book, heirship implies an inheritance. If we have been made heirs of God, we have become partakers of the inheritance left us at the death of Christ Jesus the Testator. This inheritance comes with the divine birth, and it’s ours because our Father and Lord died. In the Epistle to the Hebrews, we read how this inheritance from the Lord was secured for us.
“How much more (than animal sacrifices) shall the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered Himself without spot to God, purge your conscience from dead works to serve the living God? And for this cause He (Jesus) is the mediator of the New Testament (Covenant or Last Will and Testament), that by means of (His) death…they which are called might receive the promise of eternal inheritance” (Heb 9:14-15).
Heirship, therefore, implies that an inheritance is on its way. An heir is a potential inheritor. It does not immediately make the heir an inheritor; an heir to the throne when he’s an infant does not differ from a servant. He needs to grow up before he can occupy his position on the throne of his father. As the Apostle Paul states in the Epistle to the Galatians, “the heir, as long as he is a child, differeth nothing from a servant, though he is lord of all; But is under tutors and governors until the time appointed by the father” (Gal 4:1,2).
A child born into a royal family is a potential ruler, but does not differ from the commoners in the court if he remains a child. He will continue to be under the servants’ training and tutoring until he grows up and graduates into a mature state where he knows his position and is able to rule over his subjects. In the same manner, an infant born into a wealthy family is an heir, but not yet an inheritor, until he is of age to step into his inheritance and appropriate it.
Our Father is the all-wise God, and He has prepared a great estate for each of us to inherit. But there’s a stipulation with regard to when we can enter into our inheritance. We cannot yet enter into our full inheritance while we are still bottle-fed, still in diapers, or still sucking at our pacifiers. In fact, while we remain toddlers, all He will consider giving to us will be toys. Fathers give toys to babies and toddlers. That’s the limit of responsibility with which you can trust an infant. It will not matter much if he breaks the toy, because it doesn’t have much value. Toys are for babes, but the inheritance is for grown-ups.
The passage of Scripture above is very clearly rendered by the Amplified Bible as follows:
“Now what I mean is that as long as the inheritor (heir) is a child and under age, he does not differ from a slave, although he is the master of all the estate; But he is under guardians and administrators or trustees until the date fixed by his father” (Gal 4:1,2).
Our Father God is simply telling us to grow up. “Grow up and begin to possess your possession!” is what He’s literally saying to us. He has stipulated that until we reach a certain age of maturity, an age that corresponds to a level of responsibility, we cannot fully enter into the eternal inheritance that He has amassed for us. He has marked out this inheritance and it’s kept in heaven for us, but to fully enter into it, we must reach the maturity of responsibility. God will not make an immature infant the ruler over the nations. Yes, the kid is an heir, but until he grows up, he will remain under supervisors and tutors.
The heir infant, surrounded by the pictures, news reports, and beautiful photographs of his billionaire father’s estate, crying for milk and toys, understands little of the inheritance into which he has been born. The five-star investments, the mansions in Beverly Hills, the successful business enterprise, the accumulated nine-figure investment accounts, the prestige of fame and power—all these are his to inherit; but years must pass before he can understand and appropriate any of these. And indeed, this is so true about children of God. How little do most of us children of God know of the inheritance that was ours the moment we became children of God! We are satisfied with toys and pacifiers when continually before our eyes are the pictures and photographs of the glorious inheritance that is ours as children of God.
Because of this, we are admonished by the Holy Spirit through the Apostle Paul to move on from the babyhood realm into maturity. We are urged to press forward from the gift and toy realms into the inheritance realm. Toys and gifts are enjoyed and valued greatly by children; at that level of maturity they cannot appreciate an inheritance. A child would rather listen to you if you are going to give him a toy car to play with than if you talk to him about an inheritance. You’d better give him his holiday presents and toys, or there’ll be no peace and your house will be filled with crying and wailing instead of songs of celebration. Try telling him that you’ll leave him an inheritance and see how that works out.
Of course, there are big toys for big boys and girls. There are even bigger gifts for bigger boys and girls, and these big gifts and toys are given to privileged kids that are born into a great inheritance. But these are not the substantial inheritance. Gifts and toys suffice for children, but His inheritance is for the full-grown.
God will only commit kingdom authority and power to those of His children that have reached the spiritual maturity of sons. This is the inheritance of the saints of God who are joint heirs with Christ Jesus. We inherit the Kingdom with our Lord Jesus Christ, but we only reign with Him if we pass through the process He passed through and attain the maturity of a Son.
Our Lord Jesus in His relationship with the Father passed through these stages, setting an example for us. He started as a child. “For unto us a child is born” (Isa 9:6a). He was born as a child and had to grow before His Father God. He had to pass through thirty years of spiritual development under the dealings of His Father, learning His ways in complete obedience. For “though he was a Son, yet he learned obedience by the things which he suffered; And being made perfect, he became the author of eternal salvation to all them that obey him” (Heb 5:8,9).
And when He reached maturity, at the great ceremony in the River Jordan, God declared Him as His Son. A Child was born in Bethlehem, but thirty years later at the Jordan River, a “Son was given.” And from that day forward, we saw Him enter into His full inheritance: the Son manifested to the world, and the Kingdom of God came among men.
