There is a kingdom, a king, and a royal family in God’s kingdom. We are sons and daughters of God and kings and priests (Revelation 1:6).
But as many as received Him, to them He gave the right to become children of God, to those who believe in His name. John 1:12
For you did not receive the spirit of bondage again to fear, but you received the Spirit of adoption by whom we cry out, “Abba, Father.” The Spirit Himself bears witness with our spirit that we are children of God, and if children, then heirs—heirs of God and joint heirs with Christ, if indeed we suffer with Him, that we may also be glorified together. Romans 8:15–17
Having predestined us to adoption as sons by Jesus Christ to Himself, according to the good pleasure of His will, to the praise of the glory of His grace, by which He made us accepted in the Beloved. Ephesians 1:5–6
What we believe about ourselves and the love of Father God will determine how much fear or trust we will walk in. Trusting in God means believing He loves us, that He is good, that He has the power to help us, and that He will! I have discovered that my trust in God grows by spending time with Him, meditating on the Word of God, praying, and worshiping Him, which brings real intimacy and fellowship! Because God loves us, He wants to meet our needs and for us to be blessed and prosper in every area of our lives!
Love originates in God and is unconditional, everlasting, and motivated by His mercy and grace. God is love, and His love involves the compassion or mercy of God (not getting what we/they deserve). The world looks for love in all the wrong places. But God’s love is different than the world’s kind of love or even the love our earthly father showed us.
God created us to operate on His love. That is how we become whole. God’s love will take care of us, and we can never be separated from His love (Romans 8:38‒39).
God, the Father, is approachable through Jesus Christ. When we receive Jesus as our personal Savior, the very love of God is poured into our hearts by His Holy Spirit (Romans 5:5).
Our new birth in Christ makes us sons or daughters of God, but it does not automatically mean we will enter into the whole experience of that love relationship with Him as Father. Often, it is because we have experienced hurt, rejection, etc., from our earthly parents, teachers, and others in authority.
Perfect love casts out fear. There are so many ways that fear can come against us, e.g., fear of rejection, fear of trusting, and fear of opening our hearts to love because we may get hurt.
There is no fear in love; but perfect love casts out fear, because fear involves torment. But he who fears has not been made perfect in love. 1 John 4:18
But when we know that Father God loves and accepts us as we are, we will live our lives feeling safe, secure, and at rest in His love, living like His sons and daughters.
Let’s now look briefly at our kingdom identity. In Pedro Adao’s 2025 wisdom challenge and goal-setting workshop, he discusses three core parts of kingdom identity and that we need to have a revelation of all three!
First, we are sons and daughters of the King. Therefore, we have an inheritance and are part owners in the family business. God relates to us as sons to a loving father. (Fathers provide identity, self-worth, direction, and protection). Our second identity is that we are citizens of the kingdom. We must know our rights, benefits, and responsibilities as citizens. The third is we are servants of the Lord.
It is important to remember that we will walk in alignment with who we believe we are! If we only focus on one piece of our identity, we will be out of alignment with God’s kingdom.
For example, only seeing ourselves as a son or daughter can lead to laziness and entitlement. If we only see ourselves as citizens of the kingdom, it leads to legalism or rules without a relationship. If we only see ourselves as servants of the Lord, it leads to doing performance-oriented works.
Following rules without a relationship with God the Father and performing performance-oriented works can open the door to the spirit of religion. This demonic entity seeks to substitute religious activity for the power of the Holy Spirit in our lives and the church. The religious spirit uses fear and pride to get us to serve the Lord and gain His approval and love rather than from having received God the Father’s acceptance and love through the cross of Jesus Christ. Our desire to please the Lord and practice Christian disciplines must come from a heart motivation of love, not acceptance.
We must walk in all three core identities in the kingdom to embrace our complete identity. Identity is so important that Satan, the father of lies, tries to put unrighteous labels on us (e.g., lazy, loser, failure, not good enough, sick, etc.) We must cast down or out those lies he sends our way through our thoughts and the words of others, or they will become what we believe about ourselves, and they are not true.
We must ask ourselves which father these thoughts come from: the father of lies or Father God? The simplest way to determine the truth from a lie is to ask: does it lead us to Christ or away from Him? Does it reveal what God says about us in His Word or bring guilt, shame, or condemnation?
The enemy’s lies can become strongholds, a fortress of lies the enemy builds in our minds and emotions that hold our thoughts captive.
Open doors are where demons come in, whereas strongholds are mindsets or thinking patterns that occur over time. Open doors are closed instantly, but strongholds are broken over time. Open doors are closed through repentance and renouncing, whereas strongholds are removed through the renewal of the mind and consistent resistance (Ephesians 4:27; James 4:7).
Demons get in through an open door and stay in through a stronghold, giving them legal rights and protection. A stronghold is like a house the demon occupies. Even if a demon is cast out, the person will suffer if the stronghold is not demolished. Therefore, it must be dealt with, or it will still cause pain and stagnation and prevent us from fulfilling our destiny.
To break down strongholds, we must first eliminate the demon and evict the demon or this house occupant. We remove demons by casting them out in the name of Jesus and by His blood through the power of the Holy Spirit.
Mindsets are not demons, so we can’t cast them out, so it is best not to let those negative thoughts and lies get a foothold! But we can choose not to agree with the enemy’s lies.
That is, we repent of believing the lies and renounce partnership with the spirit behind them (e.g., the spirit of fear, guilt, shame, etc.). Then, we ask the Holy Spirit which truth we should believe from the Word of God to replace the lie. Finally, we bring every thought into captivity. Be patient because renewing your mind and demolishing the stronghold takes time. We renew our minds and demolish strongholds by the Word of God.
For the weapons of our warfare are not carnal but mighty in God for pulling down strongholds, casting down arguments and every high thing that exalts itself against the knowledge of God, bringing every thought into captivity to the obedience of Christ. 2 Corinthians 10:4‒5
The Lord also wants to heal any soul wounds that came from hurt, rejection, abandonment, abuse, etc. So, we ask the Holy Spirit to help reveal our hearts, beliefs, and mindsets and help us change. We must partner with the Holy Spirit to heal our hearts and souls and renew our minds, bringing breakthroughs and inner healing. (Part Three of my book, Jesus The Healer, discusses this more thoroughly— https://amazon.com/author/alexiscarucci).
God the Father loves us so much that He gave His Son Jesus to pay the price to restore us to His family (John 3:16; 17:23).
There are no orphans in God’s kingdom. We are not spiritual orphans but beloved sons and daughters.
“I will not leave you orphans; I will come to you.” John 14:18
Let me define an orphan spirit or mindset. In her enliven blog, 4 Symptoms of the Orphan Spirit in Church Life,[1] Helen Calder describes it as a spiritual condition in which Christians may profess outwardly to know God as their Father but experience internally a contradiction of that belief. She states that we have an orphan mindset when contemplating what God has called us to do, continually making us feel inadequate or afraid.
In his book Spiritual Slavery to Spiritual Sonship,[2] Jack Frost explains that you can’t cast out an orphan spirit, heart, or mindset. We must displace it by an experiential revelation of God the Father’s love and the repositioning of our hearts towards sonship, where we feel at rest and secure in God’s love. The heart of a son or daughter of God believes it belongs in His family, is free from shame and self-condemnation, and walks in humility before God and others.
Wherever an orphan spirit resides, whether over a person, church, city, region, or nation, the orphan heart causes people to feel like they don’t belong and are not accepted. They don’t feel valued, honored, or loved. They have a perceived need to perform to be approved and affirmed.
Because spiritual orphans do not feel accepted and need to prove their worth, they may perceive the strengths of others as competition and feel the need to stand out and seek attention, requiring constant reassurance.
The orphan heart is independent and resists constructive criticism or correction, often becoming offended, ashamed, and feeling guilty. God corrects His children in love and for their good (Proverbs 3:12). He loves us unconditionally, no matter what we say or do, and His love never changes. When secure in the Father’s heart, we know we are loved and accepted because we belong to God, not because of what we do or don’t do.
Do the people in your life know you can receive correction easily, especially from people who love you? Pride can also get in our way. We must have a humble heart and be teachable. Sometimes, we find faults in others to discredit or disqualify them from speaking into our lives, but God can use any imperfect vessel! We must seek wisdom and apply it to our lives. We can learn from our mistakes, but it is much better and easier to learn from other’s mistakes!
My Testimony
Growing up and well into my adulthood, I felt like I had to be good enough or perform to be accepted and loved, which affected all my relationships, not just my relationship with God.
Several years ago, I listened to some teachings on the love of God, but I didn’t take them to heart. I thought, “I already know that.” But the Holy Spirit showed me that there is a difference between knowing, believing, and living my life on it. I wasn’t experiencing God’s love and goodness like I had thought I did. I asked the Holy Spirit to work on my heart and show me the love of the Father. He led me to meditate on God’s love revealed in the Word of God.
We may have difficulty receiving God’s forgiveness and forgiving ourselves when we don’t have the revelation of God’s love towards us.
Healing, deliverance, and sanctification are an ongoing process. If you have struggled with experiencing God’s love or have recognized an orphan mindset in your life, I invite you to pray this prayer to be released from an orphan mindset and grow in the revelation of the Father’s love.
Prayer (Pray out loud)
Father, please forgive me for the times I have not recognized and embraced the truth of my relationship with You— that I am Your fully loved, known, and accepted child.
I repent of the times that I feel or act as though I am an orphan and not a member of Your family when Jesus has paid the price for me to be in Your family.
I refuse to have an orphan mindset, with all its lies, rejection, and unbelief.
I ask you, Holy Spirit, to continue to expose and deal with any residue of orphan thinking in my life and to bring the truth of who I am. I choose to believe the truth about who I am in relationship to You, Father, chosen, accepted in the Beloved, adopted as sons, a child of God, and who You are in relationship to me.
Thank you for Your Spirit of adoption. I ask You, Holy Spirit, to fill my life and saturate my heart and mind with the truth of who I am. All fear is gone. I receive Your joy!
In the name of Jesus, Amen.
Before we close, let’s look at some dimensions of sonship. First, we must build our foundation on who we are in Christ, who is the Chief Cornerstone. Our foundation is righteousness. The love of God has made us right!
For He made Him who knew no sin to be sin for us, that we might become the righteousness of God in Him. 2 Corinthians 5:21
Self-righteousness comes from pride and an orphan mentality—working for righteousness. God isn’t looking to see if we give to orphans and widows, tithes and offerings, etc. He loves us, and He wants to bless us! When we give, spend time with Him, etc., His blessings flow, and we grow. He isn’t looking for performance but a relationship! He wants to hang out with us. Settling into our sonship is first and most important to Him. The love of God is our foundation and where we get our affirmation.
Second, sonship is positional. We are seated with Christ in heavenly places, hidden in Christ, and have the mind of Christ, His thoughts, righteous nature, and heart (Ephesians 2:6; Colossians 3:3; 1 Corinthians 2:16).
Third, sonship is relational. Have you noticed that God often calls you His son or daughter when you receive a prophetic word? Our lives need to be about perception, not circumstances. We need to frame our perspective based on what the Father believes.
As sons and daughters of the kingdom, we have responsibilities based on this identity.
- Sons of the Light – We are the transitioning agent because we are the light in the world. We bridge the two worlds—the seen and the unseen.
- Sons of the resurrection and power (Luke 20:36)
- Sons of peace – where we go, peace goes. Divine order is released when we align with who we are in Christ. (Luke 10:5–6)
- Sons of the kingdom. We have governmental and judicial responsibility in God’s kingdom. e.g., binding and loosing (Matthew 18:18), enforcing the works of Christ to rule, etc.
God owns everything, but He has chosen us to rule with Him and do things in and through us. We need a kingdom mindset, not a political, religious, or poverty mindset. As sons and daughters of God, we partner with Him to bring the kingdom of God to the earth through our prayers, intercession, and actions.
God is Sovereign, but He has given dominion over the earth to humanity (Genesis 1:26‒28). He will not break His rules and take over managing the earth since He has given it to humankind. We must agree with what He wants to be done on the earth to see it manifest here as we partner with Him.
We are to influence our culture. Our original design is sonship. Adam is not our origin – Jesus is! Sonship brings us into partnership with God – His heart, mind, and faith. We are carriers of His hope, grace, love, etc.
Because God loves us, we can love others too. Matthew 22:39 indicates that we are to love our neighbors as we love ourselves. The issue isn’t who is our neighbor but how we love ourselves! The problem is too many of us don’t or can’t love ourselves because we feel unlovable, not accepted or forgiven, feel like a failure, or judge and condemn ourselves. We need to know what love is and to receive God’s love genuinely because God is love, and perfect love casts out fear (1 John 4:18). God the Father loves us as much as He loves Jesus (John 17:23). Therefore, we need to know who we are in Christ Jesus—our identity in Him, e.g., chosen, accepted in the Beloved, adopted as sons, a child of God, redeemed, etc.
We can give love away when we are full of God’s love. Our job is to let people see God’s love in and through us. The Holy Spirit convicts them of sin and their need for salvation, but we should reflect the Father’s love through His Son, Jesus Christ.
That is why we need to know that we are fully loved and that the heavenly Father delights in us because of Jesus, who paid it all on the cross for us to be sons and daughters of God!
We need the Holy Spirit to reveal God’s love so we can live it out daily. Meditate on God’s love and ask the Holy Spirit to fill you with the Father’s love daily. Here are some verses to get you started: Psalm 86:15; Romans 5:8; 8:31‒39; Ephesians 2:4‒7; 3:14‒19;1 John 3:1, 16; 4:7‒19.
My prayer for you:
I pray That Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith; that you, being rooted and grounded in love, may be able to comprehend with all the saints what is the width and length and depth and height—to know the love of Christ which passes knowledge; that you may be filled with all the fullness of God. Ephesians 3:17–19
Scripture taken from the New King James Version®. Copyright © 1982 by Thomas Nelson. Used by permission. All Rights reserved.
[1] Calder, Helen. “4 Symptoms of the Orphan Spirit in Church Life,” Enliven Blog. September 17, 2012.
[2] Frost, Jack. Spiritual Slavery to Spiritual Sonship: Your Destiny Awaits You (Shippensburg: Destiny Image Publishers, 2006).
Living the Abundant Life 