In The Father’s House

Recently I came across the story of Hiroo Onoda, a Japanese soldier who did not realise that World War II had ended. He joined the Japanese army in 1944 and was stationed in Lubang, Philippines. Allied forces defeated the Japanese Army and the war ended in 1945 but Hiroo and a few Japanese soldiers survived. Hiroo saw some leaflets that the war had ended but he did not believe it. Hiroo continued to live in the jungles of Philippines surviving from the jungle until he was discovered years later by a Japanese tourist who was looking for him. He only came out of hiding when the Japanese government was able to send in his old commander to relieve him of duties in March 1974. That was 29 years after World War II ended!

Sometimes as Christians we go through life in the same manner. We don’t access the freedom and inheritance that we now have in Jesus to enjoy God and all that He provides for us but instead we live trapped, enslaved and in lack. We are saved by Jesus into a new kingdom, the Kingdom of God and have access to all that the Kingdom of God offers to us as our inheritance. God Himself is our greatest inheritance! We are seated with Christ in heavenly places and we have access to every spiritual blessing in Christ! We need to know who we are in Christ – our identity, position and inheritance in Him to be victorious and live the abundant glorious life!
Ephesians 1:3
³ Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in the heavenly realms with every spiritual blessing in Christ. 
1 Peter 1:3-5
³ Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ! In his great mercy he has given us new birth into a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, ⁴ and into an inheritance that can never perish, spoil or fade. This inheritance is kept in heaven for you, ⁵ who through faith are shielded by God’s power until the coming of the salvation that is ready to be revealed in the last time.

When Jesus died on the cross, He made a way for us to enter the very presence of God and have access to God’s kingdom. Our citizenship changed and we have the unmerited favor of God and access to the new Kingdom that we are now part of. When Jesus breathed His last, the curtain in the temple was torn into two. Jewish literature and Josephus, the historian records that the curtain was 60 feet high, 30 feet wide and 4 inches thick. This was truly an act of God to tear this very thick curtain from top to bottom. The torn curtain reveals that all of us believers have unparalleled access to God and there is no barrier or separation between God and us to enjoy Him!
Mark 15:37–38
³⁷ With a loud cry, Jesus breathed his last.³⁸ The curtain of the temple was torn in two from top to bottom.

We can expect God’s favor and anointing in our lives because of the cross and the perfect sacrifice of Jesus Christ who gave us His righteousness! We can now have the confidence to enter the Most Holy Place because of Jesus’ blood shed on the cross! Being thus rooted in the righteousness of Christ, and depending on God’s grace towards us means that we have delegated power or authority to ask, receive and enjoy the rich inheritance that the Father has for us! We can live life now in this “new and living way” enjoying God and our rich inheritance in Him!
Hebrews 10: 19-22
¹⁹ Therefore, brothers and sisters, since we have confidence to enter the Most Holy Place by the blood of Jesus, ²⁰ by a new and living way opened for us through the curtain, that is, his body, ²¹ and since we have a great priest over the house of God, ²² let us draw near to God with a sincere heart and with the full assurance that faith brings, having our hearts sprinkled to cleanse us from a guilty conscience and having our bodies washed with pure water.

In the story of the Prodigal Son, the older brother complains to the Father when a grand celebration is organised for the return of his younger brother who squandered away the father’s wealth. The older brother was angry and refused to go in and complained that his father never even gave him a young goat to feast with, much less a fattened calf. The older son thinks his father has been stingy, unfair and withholding from him. The father then reassures his older son that he has been with him the whole time and that everything belongs to him. That is our reality too – we have a relationship with God and we have a glorious inheritance in Him!
Luke 15: 31
³¹ “‘My son,’ the father said, ‘you are always with me, and everything I have is yours.

It is time for us too to realise the folly of our thinking – that God has not blessed us, that God is unfair or God is stingy. Instead we need to remember what Christ accomplished for us on the cross to be in relationship with Him! God is our very inheritance! Are you facing a difficult situation right now? I want to remind you today that you belong to the Father’s house and there is provision in the Father’s house for your very situation. We need to truly appropriate the promises of God into our situation as we encounter God today. In the Father’s house, there is God Himself to be enjoyed and there is wholeness, restoration, hope and joy!