Jack & Trisha Frost of Shiloh Place Ministries laid such a foundation of the Father’s love in my life. As you read today’s post, see if you heart can embrace God’s passion for you.

God is not ashamed to be called your Father. He delights to be a Father to you and to have you as His child. He is passionate in His love toward you. You are the apple of His eye. He rejoices over you with joy and with singing. He is thrilled to be your Father and to have you as His child. You are the child in whom He loves and in whom He is well pleased, just like Jesus.

He’s not ashamed of you, put out by you, nor disappointed in you. You are not a burden to Him. He loves you. His banner or standard over you is love. His total heart response toward you is love. He never thinks a negative thought about you. His thoughts toward you are good and loving, to give you hope and a future.

All things are opened to His eyes. There is nothing you’ve ever done that He didn’t already know about before He created the heavens and the earth. Your failings and short comings do not challenge or threaten Him in any way. He is all powerful and all knowing. He is fully able to finish the work He began in you. His total heart response toward you is love. He is love!

“I’ve always felt my dad did not have time for me. He was aloof, never there emotionally. I have even had anger toward God for putting me in the family He did.”

These are common statements I hear in prayer ministry most every day. God made little boys and girls to “feel” loved by their fathers and mothers, but sometimes they don’t. When a person can get honest about these feelings they have often carried for many years, amazing things happen.

When there is anger, people forgive as the reasons for holding the anger are resolved. However, something much deeper than that occurs. In most cases, the person feels like something was wrong with them to begin with and that’s why dad would not spend time, show affection, or even worse, be abusive. When a person can get to the place of seeing and acknowledging the shame they’ve carried, God speaks His love and washes the shame away. Here the miracle happens.

At this point the person feels compassion toward their dads (or moms). They see it wasn’t about them after all, dad had his own issues. However, better than that, the person now can receive at a heart level, the love God has for them. They move from mental assent to living connected with God’s love and it changes them.

If we could see this sweep the Body of Christ, moving her away from shame, fear, and control issues to a love that is welcoming toward all, the world would become a different place. Servant leadership, inclusive love, and a leaving behind of all the legitimacy crutches people use, would make it safe for the prodigals to come home and all manner of pre-Christians to come into the family of God.

When we lack identity in God’s love we will have fears to deal with since it is love that casts them out. 1 Jn.4:17 Fear leads to control; a lack of vulnerability, having walls up.

“In a shame bound family system there tends to be rigidly defined boundaries. This causes the development of self to get cut off early. Children learn to value defiant individualism over the ongoing dialog of relationship.” (Facing Shame) Most teenage rebellion can be found right here!

In the early 1500s, Martin Luther restored to the church understanding about Jesus Christ. This spawned years of revival based around concepts of salvation, redemption, and righteousness. In the 1800s there began Holiness and Pentecostal movements, that led to the healing revivals and the Charismatic movement and others that restored to the church understanding about the Holy Spirit.

In the early 1970s James Dobson began teaching that the family is important and how we parent makes a difference. He suffered persecution for this in the early days. In the latter 1970s John and Paula Sanford started teaching that, it not only matters how we parent but also how we were parented. They received much persecution for these concepts and yet today it is widely held that how we were fathered and mothered has a big impact on us and if there is resultant wounding it needs to be healed.

The Feasts

The Passover feast brings focus to Jesus. Pentecost points to the Holy Spirit. I believe the Feast of Tabernacles will emphasize the Father. Malachi 4:5-6: “See, I will send you the prophet Elijah before that great and dreadful day of the LORD comes. He will turn the hearts of the fathers to their children, and the hearts of the children to their fathers; or else I will come and strike the land with a curse.”

Fathering

We have a fatherless generation on the earth today. Fathers give us our identity, security, and destiny. I believe in the final move of God there will be a huge emphasis here. Teaching will abound and older believers will know how to father newer believers into both wholeness and walking out their callings effectively. Broken, spectator Christianity will come to an end!

1 Corinthians 4:15 For though you might have ten thousand instructors in Christ, yet you do not have many fathers…

I always use the Father’s Love letter in the conferences I teach on the Father’s love in many countries. In these events we see lots of restoration between fathers and their children. Father’s Love letter is available in 80 languages and so no matter where I find myself I can use this powerful tool by Barry Adams to help minister Father’s love to the people we work with. 

I recently saw the movie August Rush. There were children in an orphanage, they would spend their days dreaming of the time their parents would come and find them, even at eleven years old. I believe we all have a deep need to know a father loves us. Father’s Love letter is an excellent tool to begin ministering this to each of us.

To learn more check out the web page at: http://www.fathersloveletter.com/

For our resources at Fountains of life: http://www.fountainsoflife.org/

Check out Squidoo article http://www.squidoo.com/FathersLoveLetter

Check out Shiloh Place www.shilohplace.org

Check out Agape Reformation article http://www.shilohplace.org/Downloads/Articles/Article26-EnteringIntoTheAgapeReformation.pdf

Robert Hartzell’s materials www.fountainsoflife.org

Today was the last day of the conference. The church here is a worshipping church which really seems to help people to be open. We had a tremendous ministry time today as most everyone in the conference was weeping as God touched them. There was a very successful business man who cried in my arms for at least 15 minutes.

We also saw some physical healings once again. Several women had pain in their chest and stomach and were completely healed. One kept poking herself in the stomach showing the pain was gone. Another lady has had a foot problem for seven months receiving weekly injections for the nerves and unable to move it, she was in tears as she showed all of us how she could now move it. This has not only been one of the more open places I’ve been recently but also one of the hungriest. On top of the meetings I have done 6 one on one ministry sessions with 6 more after the service in the morning.

One of the sessions was very interesting. It was a lady who has lived in Venezuela for about 20 years but is from Cali, Columbia. In her childhood her dad would always talk in favor of leftist guerilla groups and as a teenager she joined one! She was involved for a number of years. At 18 she became pregnant and her mother refused to help her with the child, thinking she would then just return to her activities with this group “19 de Abril”. She had fallen in love with a Venezuelan and so moved here. Four years ago (16 years after coming here) she became tired of never having any peace and always having nightmares from her time in the guerilla group and all the things she had done. She got saved in the church we are working at. One thing interesting that she said is that she has seen in the Bible that we are not supposed to take advantage of the poor, which is part of what these guerilla groups do. They get people stirred up and against the government on the basis of their poverty. As I ministered to her today she forgave her dad for influencing her in that way and received healing over the regret she had over how her life would have been had her dad influenced her toward an education.

Thanks to all who have been praying. We have also had a lot of warfare over this event. I have never seen more sound system problems in my life. Then after the service the pastor will check and find nothing wrong. My Spanish has also gone well which was a big concern of mine as it has been two years since teaching a conference in Spanish.

Pastor Tawaichi in northern Thailand was in our pre-conference training to help minister at the altars during our meetings. On the first night we did not see him at the end. The next day he told us, “After your message I had to go home and repent to my wife and children before I could minister at the altar”. This testimony is what we believe God to do in pastors’ and leaders’ lives in all our conferences. 

FOUNTAINS OF LIFE exists: To See People Equipped to Intimacy with God and to Fulfilling Their Destinies in His Love. Isaiah 58:12 Those from among you shall build the old waste places; you shall raise up the foundations of many generations; and you shall be called the Repairer of the Breach, The Restorer of paths to Dwell In. Our faith is that people will become free; finally seeing the things that have hindered them in their walks with God, sometimes for many years. God has anointed us to help people discern their breach and find paths of life to dwell in. “Over 90% of Indian pastors beat their wives”— an Indian pastor. During our last conference in India, Pastor Michael stood in for all Indian men and repented to all the women present for the way men have treated them. Then, the men pastors all spoke blessings over the women! Foreign national pastors are truly on the frontlines, reaching the un-reached in their own native tongue and cultural understanding. We believe that equipping these leaders is the best possible investment of the time and resources God has entrusted to us.             We have changed our name from Fountain of Life Ministries International to simply Fountains of Life. We like the simplicity of this. We desire to be used by God to bring His “source” of life to many places around the world. To date we have held conferences and seen testimonies like the ones in this article in 23 different nations! Thank you for standing with us and helping to make that happen!            Much love,  Robert and CyndiRead Jack Frost’s Agape Reformation http://www.shilohplace.org/Downloads/Articles/Article26-EnteringIntoTheAgapeReformation.pdf

     When I was around 8 years old a couple of kids in the neighborhood had a fort. They told me and another boy we had stay out. We walked away angry at not being included, so later that day we went and tore down the fort. Hurt people seek to dominate by controlThe good news of the Gospel is a message of loving inclusion. Gal 2:3, 4—not even Titus…, being a Greek, was compelled to be circumcised. This occurred (this question of circumcision arose) because of false brethren secretly brought in, who came in by stealth to spy out our liberty which we have in Christ Jesus…Some false brethren came in their midst to “spy out their liberty”, to question their faith, “are you circumcised?” Many church movements today have their rules that must be followed or fellowship is withdrawn. Churches too often have cliques, like high school, that give or deny fellowship based on their standards being met.  Wounded people (including Christians) tend to move toward control. Any doctrine or Christian activity (evangelism, prayer, Bible reading, worship) not based in love will gradually move into legalism. You are “acceptable” if you comply and “out” if you don’t. They are hurt people seeking identity in what they do rather than who they are in Christ. Really, there is no “in-crowd”, just a hurt crowd. Only hurt people have a need to exclude others. Gal 2:12a—For before that certain came from James, he (Peter) did eat with the Gentiles.There is something so warming and healing to be received in fellowship. I am sure the Gentiles had a real good feeling as the “head man” of Christianity at that time would eat with them. Gal 2:12b—but when they were come, he withdrew and separated himself, fearing them which were of the circumcision.When certain people came from James, Peter, out of the fear of man, moved into exclusivity; he withdrew and separated himself. I’m sure the Gentiles felt bad being cut off from fellowship, kept on the outside. All of us can at times succumb to fears and put up walls. God is after us ever moving deeper into trust and to extend love. Jack Frost’s Agape Reformation article http://www.shilohplace.org/Downloads/Articles/Article26-EnteringIntoTheAgapeReformation.pdf