Overcoming an “Orphan Spirit” & Walking as a Child of God (Part 4)

This is the fourth part of a series on having an “Orphan Spirit” which is defined as a person who, although being a child of God through the sacrifice of Christ, still lives as if they are disconnected from their Heavenly Father’s care and interaction. It is my experience that far too many confessing believers live lives less than God designed or desires. When Jesus said in the gospel of John chapter 14 that he would not leave them (the disciples) as orphans, it was due in part to their feeling of abandonment as Jesus was heading to the cross.

The journey to becoming a child of God through the sacrifice of Christ is often a bumpy one due to the many obstacles. One major obstacle is finding the courage to take a “Leap of Faith” towards the claims of the gospel. We are born into this natural world and learn to navigate in it through trial and error. I believe young children have an inborn, imaginative ability to perceive the supernatural. Parents take for granted that their children have vivid imaginations but rarely do parents nurture such thinking because it’s hard enough trying to help your child learn the ropes of everyday life.  Consequently, by the time we reach our adolescent years our imagination is usually focused on acquiring natural things:  cloths, cars, jobs, etc. To be exposed to Christ and his claims of being God at this age often rings true to the teenager even though much of their “Supernatural Thinking” has been buried by learning to navigate the natural.  By the time a person is older than 18 it is much harder to make the shift to believe in the supernatural and a personal God.

The Apostle Paul wrote to believers in Galatia about becoming children of God and the nature of this relationship being both natural and spiritual. When we become Christians we don’t stop navigating in the natural but rather we start learning to incorporate the spiritual into our daily living. All this happens when the Spirit of God comes to dwell in our hearts, which is the place our decisions are made. Our hearts are part of our soul.

Galatians 4:4-7                                                                                                                                                                    

But when the fullness of the time came, God sent forth His Son, born of a woman, born under the Law, so that He might redeem those who were under the Law, that we might receive the adoption as sons. [6] Because you are sons, God has sent forth the Spirit of His Son into our hearts, crying, “Abba! Father!”  [7] Therefore you are no longer a slave, but a son; and if a son, then an heir through.

So the question has to be asked, how can we act as “Orphans” if we are “Sons & Daughter” of God? Simple. Becoming believers and receiving the Holy Spirit does not mean all of our past learning, good or bad, stops affecting how we choose and how we live. If you learned to distrust authority in a father or other person it will be a hurdle you need to learn to overcome. It will not be an automatic thing that happens because now you know that God loves you.

Paul goes further into this chapter and identifies our problem. We still have choices every day to walk in the Holy Spirit’s counsel and power or return to our old pattern of living under rules and regulations as our primary guide in life.

Galatians 4:8-9     Returning to Slavery – RELIGION                                                                                   

However at that time, when you did not know God, you were slaves to those which by nature are no gods. [9] But now that you have come to know God, or rather to be known by God, how is it that you turn back again to the weak and worthless elemental things, to which you desire to be enslaved all over 

[10] You observe days and months and seasons and years. [11] I fear for you, that perhaps I have labored over you in vain.

The Galatian Christians started out well and moved back to doing things the “Natural Way” through just human reason and religion. The same can happens to us. We can start out well and have an intimate relationship with God and then drift in that relationship because we feel safe and secure. Marriage is the same. We start out full of happiness and expectation and slowly drift to living a mechanical relationship that more reflects a business partnership than a marriage. When we wake up to our loneliness we are vulnerable to an affair because our marriage relationship was meant to be multifaceted, which includes intimacy.

Trying to live the Christian life by rules and human strength is impossible in the long-term. We can do so for a short period of time but because the Christian walk was meant to be lived in the Spirit our soul will become sick and we are right back were we started living a life of death pretending to be ok. Something will break in us and often when that happens we don’t recover.

1 Timothy 4:1-2                                                                                                                                                                   

But the Spirit explicitly says that in later times some will fall away from the faith, paying attention to deceitful spirits and doctrines of demons, [2] by means of the hypocrisy of liars seared in their own conscience as with a branding iron, 

Here are a few things to consider if you are struggling with an orphan spirit:

1) You can’t cast out and orphan spirit. This is not like a demon that has gained control of some area of your life but is rather a choice we made to live in the natural rather than in the Holy Spirit.

2) When we came to Christ we had to humble ourselves and ask God to forgive us of our sin. Living the Christian life by purely human strength is sin. Rom 14:23, 1 John 1:9

3) We need to ask the Holy Spirit to fill us again ( Eph 5:15-16) This passage should have been translated to be “Continually Filled” because we lose the Holy Spirit’s influence through our daily activities.

Ephesians 5:15-16                                                                                                                                                    

Therefore be careful how you walk, not as unwise men but as wise, making the most of your time, because the days are evil.  So then do not be foolish, but understand what the will of the Lord is. [18] And do not get drunk with wine, for that is dissipation, but be filled with the Spirit, 

Your relationship with God always is processed through the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit gives us the “Presence” and the “Power” of God to live the Christian life as God intended.

Don’t feel condemned if you’re experiencing an orphan mentality but rather reject the distance and embrace the intimacy you were called to. Write down scriptures that reveal the promise of God to be close and then remind your soul of these truths. In my final article on the Orphan Spirit I will be dealing with the “Prodigal Son”.

May the Holy Spirit fill each and every one of us who hunger for the presence and power of our Heavenly Father.

Pastor Dale