Attaining to Sonship

I recently listened to one of my favorite messages by Art Katz, originally delivered June 2002 in Challis, Idaho. It was titled Attaining to Sonship. It’s a message that irrevocably changed my life. I have truly never been the same since that day in June. Amazingly, the reverberation of this word affects my life daily.  The message was on Sonship, and it wasn’t one I merely listened to; it’s powerful anointing dynamically impacted me. Art was an amazing man – literally a force of nature. Plain and simple, God used this man to impact His world, and I miss him!

Simply Hearing About Sonship

But today I’m seeing something really major about this teaching: We’re never going to receive nor experience Sonship merely by listening to a teaching on the subject. Sonship comes through impartation from the resurrected life in another. Yep, it’s received by impartation more than revelation. Revelation of the resurrected life is for understanding, but the reality of it in our lives comes about through an impartation.

The resurrected life is received and conceived, not perceived.

With rare exceptions, living the resurrected life of the Son comes through impartation as someone else lives that Life before you. When I heard Art’s message, it was like a Ground Zero moment in my spiritual life. It was a moment in time that changed everything. But unseen was the back-story that played out prior to me hearing this message. I’d walked years with Martha Kilpatrick, who gave daily evidence to the resurrected Life. She was teaching me while being an example of it, and I was receiving it through a living impartation. Martha was living the resurrected life before me, and I was being changed with each moment. God used her to work this message into the soil of my heart, so that when Art spoke the message, the reality was ignited in me.

The Reality of Sonship

You see, the message itself wasn’t the reality. I know that Art’s words that day were not Art but Christ. He was giving witness to the message Christ spoke through him.  Art brought forth Sonship reality in delivering a message about Sonship.  But without the groundwork laid beforehand, I would not have entered into a new actuality. I see now how someone could leave that message and think, “Boy, that was anointed,” yet not be changed. But for many years, there was a working of my heart prior to that message. That work turned my heart into receptive soil—well-fertilized, perfectly tilled and ready for the message to be delivered.

Receiving Sonship

The messages, “Not I but Christ” and “Christ in me, the hope of glory,” are received through impartation. We really must have it evidenced through living example. Why does it have to literally be given through example not just teaching? Because life begets life. The reality of resurrected life, which is His life, has to be transferred through another person’s resurrected life. Someone has to be willing to carry the message and pay the price in my life for that message to be birthed.

Who are these someone’s? These are often the ones who receive little thanks but carry us within the womb of their own spirits to birth Christ’s life in us. The scripture talks about Paul travailing with birth pangs until Christ is formed in the Galatians (Gal. 4:19). The apostle Paul gave evidence to the resurrected life and carried sons full-term to birth. Paul’s job wasn’t primarily to stand up and explain the revelation; he had to live it out before them, transferring the Life of which he spoke. This is discipleship! It is the making of disciples!

The exchanged life only comes through an exchange of lives.

(In the days to come I will post the transcription of Art’s message. I hope it blesses you greatly.)