Father’s Love | Paths to Dwell In

A Fathering Movement

October 27, 2009 By robert 1 Comment

A Quick Church History

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…

Filed Under: Agape Reformation Tagged With: Agape Reformation, Father's Love

How to Receive Like a Son

October 25, 2009 By robert Leave a Comment

A Slave Mentality

Many people and ministries are struggling at this time in receiving their needed resources. I believe that for the childlike, the teachable, those who have not grown cynical and critical but can still be in awe of what God can do—fresh, out of the box ideas are coming like never before!

Where to Find Resources

We teach a series called “Living a Fathered Life, Going from Slavery to Sonship.”

Israel in the wilderness had a slavery mentality (no faith to try anything new, always gravitating to the negative, no awe of Father) and so could not enter the promised land. There is no inheritance for slaves.

In Luke15 the older brother complained, “You have never given me anything,” and the father said “Son, you own it all.” The son was complaining because his father did not give him liquid assets, instant solutions. The father was trying to show him that he had given him so much more than that, something so much higher. So often in our prayers we are asking God for finished products, liquid assets – “God give us the money for this venture”; “God make my business or ministry successful, in Jesus name.”

How Sons Receive

However, God often deals with sons by giving them raw materials. The older brother could go out to the field and choose any goat he wanted, catch it when he wanted, butcher it, cook it, call his friends and have a party—anytime. There was no shortage of resources there, only a shortage of perspective.

Perspective

He could not see liquid assets and so thought he did not have any assets. The father said, “Son, you are a builder, you can put things together, you have been running my whole operation for years. You know how to put together a business plan and implement it. Help yourself, go take the raw materials and do what you want.”

Press In

Why not daily ask God to anoint your eyes, to show you raw materials instead of liquid assets. When I worked with the subsistence farmers of the Dominican Republic, I would continually be amazed at their resourcefulness. One time Tulio and I went up the mountain for some poles to build a back porch. He knew where to look to find just the right trees for the job. He found some vines nearby that he cut for rope. He looked around for what was needed. Here in the US we are addicted to the finished product. We have lost the understanding of how to be a builder like our farmer forefathers had.

Challenge – spend 30 days asking God to show you the raw materials that are already there and to coach you how to pray like a son instead of a slave. Instead of praying, “Give me the finished product,” pray, “God show me how to put together these raw materials in a way I have never seen before.”

(This material comes from Arthur Burk’s new teaching, “Social Entrepreneurs”)

Filed Under: sonship Tagged With: Father's Love, sonship

My Father’s Workshop

October 3, 2009 By cyndi 6 Comments

By Cyndi

When I was a little girl, I used to love to go out back into my father’s workshop. It was a separate building behind our house where he had a big table saw, a long place to work on and tools hanging on nails all along the walls. Sheets of plywood of all different sizes from various projects were leaning on one side of the room, and a cabinet with multiple boxes of nails, screws, washers and other things was mounted on the far corner. Underneath the table my dad kept a bucket of scrap wood just for me. I could use anything in it to pound nails into or create and build whatever I wanted. Sawdust was everywhere so I got a bit dusty at times, but I liked the smell of it.

I loved hanging out with my father “out back,” as we would say, because he was always working on something and I just liked being around him. It was fun. We built all kinds of things, everything from shelves for the hall closet to a deck around our above-ground pool. My job was usually the holder, you know, the one who holds the end of the board while it’s being sawed so it doesn’t break off and fall. But for me it wasn’t so much about working on a project necessarily, it was about spending time together.

He would explain how all the different tools were used for different reasons, how sometimes it’s better to use screws instead of nails, how particle board is different from masonite, how sometimes you use fine sandpaper instead of rough, all that kind of stuff. One of my favorite things was using his chisel set to chisel out my name or some design in a piece of wood. He would show me how to gently tap it to make smaller dents or to use a thick one and hit it hard if I was taking a whole section out. It was a time of impartation, of communion. It was a time of sharing.

I often picture myself with Father God “out back” in a workshop. It’s not so much about what we’re working on—I have plenty of things in my life to work on, for sure—but it’s about having communion with Him. Sometimes I just read one or two scriptures and let Him explain it to me, like my dad did with the tools. Sometimes I pull thoughts or dreams from my “scrap bucket” and want to just create—thinking, talking, singing, joking—no real agenda. But that’s it—no real agenda. Simply fellowship. Much is imparted to me simply by being in His presence. We’re spending time together, and there are even moments when I think I smell sawdust.

Filed Under: Christianity, Father's Love Tagged With: acceptance, Chrisitianity, Father's Love, love

Father is Love!

September 25, 2009 By robert 4 Comments

Father does all in Love

1 John 4:8 …God is love. Love is who God is, His very essence. Therefore, God basis everything He does is in love. God never thinks a negative or critical thought about you. He thinks good thoughts toward you, thoughts of peace and not evil, to give you a future and a hope. (Jer.29:11)

Father is Not Insecure!

Think of your Father in heaven all loving, all knowing, all powerful. What could ever cause Him to feel threatened or insecure? Being critical and negative are defense mechanisms people use when they have been hurt and do not want to be hurt again. God is not sitting in heaven thinking that you just do not ever get it right or will not ever be obedient, so He is fed up with you and ready to abandon you.

1 John 4:18 There is no fear in love; but perfect love casts out fear, because fear involves punishment, and the one who fears is not perfected in love.

Father’s Plans toward You are Loving

Father is in heaven thinking how much He loves you, and in His omnipotence and omniscience is planning to bring you into the very best He has for you, what will fit you perfectly for the way He created you. His plan for you really is above all you could ask or even imagine. (Eph.3:20)

When God thinks of you as His child, it sends a thrill through His heart and He rejoices over you with joy and singing! (Zephaniah 3:17)

Is this the God you know?

Filed Under: Father's Love Tagged With: Father's Love, Gods goodness

Father’s True Love Sets Us Free

September 13, 2009 By robert Leave a Comment

Father’s Love is Freeing

“If you love something, set it free. If it comes back, it was, and always will be yours. If it never returns, it was never yours to begin with. (Author unknown)

No one has ever walked this out in a greater way than God. Jesus gives us a great example of Father’s love setting us free in the story of the prodigal (Luke 15). Deut.21:20, 21 says that this rebellious son should have been stoned, and yet Jesus shares how the father in this story actually accommodates his request for his inheritance.

Some people may have heard of the Invisible Fence for dogs. It is an electrical wire buried just under the grass on the perimeters of your yard. The dog then has a sensor on his collar that gives him a shock if he crosses the wire. Now when we get saved, we are committing our lives to the Lordship of Christ. At that prayer, He could have put some kind of shock system on the inside of us so that whenever we would go to spread a little gossip, tell a lie, or even cheat on our diet, we would get a shock. The Body of Christ, I believe, would very quickly become obedient! But it would only be an outward conformity. God is after our hearts. He wants us to choose to obey Him out of love, not duty. He has gone to incredible lengths to have a people who would do this in a radical way!

Filed Under: Father's Love Tagged With: Father's Love

Wrath and the Revealing of the Sons of God

March 28, 2009 By robert 5 Comments

By Robert

Is America under God’s wrath? If it were, what would that mean exactly? Is there something more that God has in the final chapters of this present age than vengeful indignation?

Wrath (Merriam-Webster)

1: strong vengeful anger or indignation

2: retributory punishment for an offense or a crime: divine chastisement

I believe rightly dividing the word of God on the subject of God’s wrath is very important. (2 Tim.2:15) Wrath is a strong word- it has nothing to do with discipline; it is about punishment and retribution or payback. There is intense anger and zero mercy. When people preach that America is under God’s wrath are they saying:

God has gotten His feelings hurt, can no longer contain Himself and so is pouring out His Judgment?
Are they saying He is absolutely sick and tired of His people simply not obeying Him and committing abortion and sexual sin?
Did the level of sin take God by surprise as though He did not know the future or that people would not eventually get it together? H
Can God who walks in love, walk in wrath toward others?

Is this what they’re saying?

Luke 9:54-55 And when His disciples James and John saw this, they said, “Lord, do You want us to command fire to come down from heaven and consume them, just as Elijah did?” But He turned and rebuked them, and said, “You do not know what manner of spirit you are of.”

In these verses, we see the disciples having an image of Father God as being punitive-one who’s looking to inflict punishment. Jesus never emulated this type of character, but somewhere they had to have learned this father concept. Someone, at some point in their lives, must have communicated to them a harsh, angry authority. I believe that those in the church today who are saying that America is finished, that it will become a third-world nation, that it will be completely destroyed and those that escape will be the ones who return to Europe and Africa, are simply hurt little boys in grown-up bodies. To have the view that God is angry and looking to punish America for all the sin here, simply means that they themselves probably grew up wounded by a punishing, vindictive authority rather than a loving, disciplining father-type. Instead of seeking Him to find healing for their wounds, they have formed a whole theology around their wounding.

It does say in Romans 1:18 that the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who suppress the truth in unrighteousness. Notice the wrath is toward man’s actions of ungodliness and unrighteousness, not man himself. Yet when I have heard people preach this, I have almost never heard it presented in this way. It is usually presented in a way that produces fear in people. I believe people are the most precious and valuable thing in the sight of God. He sent His only Son to die on the cross for people. I believe God hates sin, not people. He hates sin because sin hurts what He cares about the most.

We have all seen the popular books and movies about a pre-tribulation rapture and then God letting the earth really have it. What if God’s plan was to make salvation available to the uttermost, to the very end?

Romans 8:19 says the whole world is waiting on the manifestation of the sons of God-the time when God’s people will embrace full sonship, full submission based on self-sacrificial love. What has the world seen up until now? They have seen the busyness of spiritual orphans, striving to get an inheritance rather than resting in the love and provision they already have from their Father.

What if the book of Revelations is God’s love letter to the earth? What if the apocalypse is where God finally puts an end to the dominance of sin so people would quit being hurt by it? What if it was also God’s plan to not only be extremely passionate in the fire of His love to stop sin, but to also use that same fire to give people every possible and conceivable chance to be saved and healed?

I do not know exactly how the end times will play out. Personally, I do not believe anyone does. I think it will all come together and make sense only as we get close enough to it. But I do believe Jesus is coming back for a victorious church as opposed to rapturing out a defeated one just before His indignation falls.

I believe we are slowly coming into the most exciting times the Body of Christ has ever seen. I am already seeing people healed from wounding, sometimes in a single ministry session, which used to take 15 years to deal with. I believe this is just the barest beginnings of the grace that will be released in these last days that will cause us to: arise, shine; for our light is come, and the glory of the Lord is risen upon us. For, behold, the darkness shall cover the earth, and gross darkness the people: but the Lord shall arise upon us, and his glory shall be seen upon us. And the Gentiles shall come to our light, and kings to the brightness of our rising (Isaiah 60:1-3).

Filed Under: Agape Reformation, Christianity, Father's Love Tagged With: Father's Love

How to Receive Fathers

April 18, 2008 By robert 1 Comment

I have had at least three significant spiritual fathers in my life.

Sam Gilpin was the first who led me to the Lord and took me through the 12 steps of Alcoholics Anonymous. This taught me deep things about transparency, surrender and restitution. This started me on a path to healing.

Pastor Steve McCoy was the second. Space does not permit me to share the many ways he has stood with me for 23 years. Certainly the foundation in God’s word that has kept me in the race all these years would be at the top of this list. The message of grace he preaches that has brought much healing was huge. Certainly counsel through all the years was also significant.

Jack Frost and Robert Hartzell together The late Jack Frost was the third who took my healing from such a broken childhood much deeper. Jack taught me the messages of Sonship that I have been sharing. He taught me church etiquette for traveling ministries. Jack taught me how to impart a message of grace to churches with other paradigms for ministry in such a way that it is received. Jack was amazing to me because he had a vision of where the church needed to go to fulfill God’s plan, yet because of his sonship he could bring his message in a way that it would be received rather than being yet another “martyr” who has “revelation that no one else sees” and ends up judging the church for being so lukewarm and deserving of wrath.

These men of God were there for me even though I was not always so sure of that. Not only did I have to work through my abandonment issues, I had to learn how to relate to the spiritual fathers God had placed in my life. I had no example to draw from. I feared my earthly father and there was not anything functional about our relationship. There were times of not asking for help and counsel because, “They don’t have time for me”. There were times of longing for them to meet my needs instead of taking my own proper personal responsibility. Both of these attitudes represent a slave/master mentality. If a slave asks a wrong question he may be hit and yet he does not eat unless this abuser feeds him. We often carry these same dysfunctional patterns over to how we relate to God. When things go our way we are so happy. When things are going wrong we can take it as rejection, thinking, “God doesn’t care for me”.

Hebrews 13:17—Obey those who rule over you, and be submissive, for they watch out for your souls, as those who must give account. Let them do so with joy and not with grief, for that would be unprofitable for you.

When we can learn to walk in healthy submission, to be a blessing rather than place demands, to get under and support the vision of the fathers God has placed in our lives it is very profitable for us, we mature into all that God has for us. It seems weekly we hear of another Christian couple getting divorced or leaving the church offended only to repeat the cycle at the next church. I believe it almost always comes down to the issues I have shared in this message. What if I would have gotten offended and left one of the spiritual fathers I mentioned in this article? Look at the heritage, the growth I would have missed! It is so worth it to work through our “children in the wilderness” mentalities, (as a slave relating to a master) and learn how to receive and relate to the spiritual fathers God places on our lives!

Filed Under: Father's Love, Healings, How to Change, Jack Frost Tagged With: authority, Father's Love, sonship, submission

Everyone Longs for a Father

April 18, 2008 By robert Leave a Comment

Everyone Longs for a Father

The heart can grow cold. For a long time I had convinced myself that I never had a father available for me and that I certainly did not need one now. I grew up in a home where my dad was often gone drinking and when he was home he was abusive. In my mid twenties he went to prison where he remains to this day. I thought I had learned to live just fine without a father in my life, but did I really?

I recently saw the movie August Rush. It starts with children in an orphanage dreaming of the day their parents or some family would come and take them. I was tearing up right away, they just wanted a family! Think of the dreams they must have had, a dad to play ball with, mom waiting with homemade cookies as they came home from school, someone to tuck them in at night.

It so happened that right after that I saw the Indian movie Salaam Bombay. It was about the street children in India. A village boy’s father died. His older brother dominated him and was mean, making him do lots of work around the house. One day, in retaliation, the boy broke his older brother’s bicycle. The mother sided with the older brother and made the boy leave until he had the money to buy another bicycle. Can you imagine a mother so numb, so existence-only oriented, that she would kick out her son to the streets so as not to annoy the older brother who was the only bread winner for this poor village family? He ended up on the streets of Mumbai. These kids are the outcasts of society, everyone harasses them and nobody cares for them. (In Brazil street children are actually often murdered by the police.) At one point he had just escaped from the police, his one friend died from drug withdrawals, he could not go home and he had no one. He just broke down and cried.

Even when we did have a relationship with our parents;

if they were not safe, if we had to put up walls of protection to fight off being controlled or shamed,
if we could not freely share our problems without being blasted with advice or made to feel condemned,
if love was not expressed,

we can still end up feeling abandoned at some level.

We know about Jesus as our Savior and Propitiator. We have learned much about the Holy Spirit and His gifts. Have we, however, learned to relate to our Heavenly Father?

Hebrews 12:7-9 If you endure chastening, God deals with you as with sons; for what son is there whom a father does not chasten? But if you are without chastening, of which all have become partakers, then you are illegitimate and not sons. Furthermore, we have had human fathers who corrected us, and we paid them respect. Shall we not much more readily be in subjection to the Father of spirits and live?

If we can receive and endure discipline then God is dealing with us as sons. This is how God wants to relate to us so we can grow and mature and fulfill the destiny that He has for each of us.

However, it then says, that if we do not receive discipline we become as illegitimate sons (no counsel, no inheritance and blessing from a father).

Finally, if we are in subjection, we live! Life flows through us, what we put our hand to prospers, and God’s favor goes before us!

Filed Under: Counseling, Father's Love Tagged With: authority, Father's Love, sonship

Living a Fathered Life

April 18, 2008 By robert 3 Comments

“Why do I always have to be the mature one for the ‘fathers’ in my life?” This is something I said many times years ago. I felt like God had never really given me any spiritual fathers. I felt like I was left to work out my problems on my own and that there was no one there to help mature me and promote me. The man who led me to the Lord, Sam, had a wonderful ministry to alcoholics and drug addicts. He was gifted to reach out to people who wanted absolutely nothing to do with God. He would start working with them to get free from addiction and within a short time they would get saved. One time I went with him to a Bible study for reaching unbelievers. The people there spoke of everything from atheism to eastern mysticism. I became very dogmatic insisting that only the Bible and God must be followed; don’t even talk about anything else! People started putting walls up as I seemed to attack them during the discussion. On the way home Sam tried to talk to me about my comments but I could not see where he was coming from. I took this to mean that he was “not for me”, so that meant he was against me, rejecting me. I feared rejection and so I rejected him before he could reject me; I left. In reality Sam never rejected me and was always there for me. At the time, I wanted him to father me the way I wanted him to father me and any break from what I perceived as fathering, I interpreted as a weakness on his part, hence my saying, “I always have to be the mature one toward those who should be there for me”.

I did this same thing with my pastor. One time I brought him some counseling books. I knew my life was a mess, and I asked him to counsel me with them. He said he had never read these books. He recommended I get a foundation in the word of God; that from his experience this is what matures a person. I once again interpreted that as a father “not being there for me”. I did, however, follow his advice and looking back many years later I can see the wisdom in it. I know many people who came out of a dysfunctional background like me who have not made it. Many have gone from church to church, running away each time God would get them to a point of dealing with their issues. Others are no longer in the faith at all. Some even went on to join cults. By God’s grace I am still at the same church 23 years later because a “father” in my life helped me get a foundation in the word of God.

Why was I not able to receive the spiritual fathers God had placed in my life? It all came down to judgments I had made toward my birth father growing up. He really was never there for me and worse, he was abusive and I feared him. I thought I had forgiven him but yet the fruit in my life clearly demonstrated otherwise like these two examples reveal. As I worked through these issues in prayer ministry, I began to see that God has always been faithful to put ‘fathers’ in my life. But now I can receive them as they are and it does not have to be on my terms.

On all of our trips we generally take 1 or 2 days and do 1 on 1 prayer ministry appointments to help people work through their issues and get unstuck in their spiritual lives. We are now offering this in Jacksonville, Florida as well.

Filed Under: Father's Love, How to Change, Prayer Ministry Tagged With: authority, Father's Love, Prayer Ministry

Right Need Wrong Source

April 1, 2008 By robert 2 Comments

There was a time in my Christian experience where I felt I needed to work hard for God, to really “pay a price” if He was ever going to use me. I would try to fast almost every single day. Most days I would end up getting and eating a whole box of Cap’n Crunch cereal instead. Then I would feel so condemned, like I just did not meet the requirements to be a great in God’s army. At that time I sought out lots of preaching that said this very same thing. I thought that if I could hear hard enough preaching long enough, it would finally motivate me to live the disciplined Christian life that I knew I should.

All of us need comfort

A BIG misunderstanding I had about the Christian life was that it was about me growing in my ability to be disciplined. I would be able withstand any temptation if I could just mature enough in my faith. I would have discipline in my prayer life, diet, exercise and finances. I did not understand that God’s grace to stand comes to the humble, who know how to live in dependence, with no walls around their hearts. 1 Peter 5:5

What I have discovered is that we all need a SLAP, Security, Love, Affirmation and Purpose. I need to know I am cared for, safe and secure from being rejected and that I am unconditionally loved. I need to feel accepted and comforted in love. I need to feel affirmed and valued, that what I do counts and finally I need a sense of purpose and destiny for my life. These are God given needs. I can find these needs met in the loving arms of my heavenly Father and in my immediate and church families. This requires interdependence and humility. If I do not find these needs met legitimately my flesh will scream to get them met in illegitimate ways. This brings a whole new understanding to the verses below.

Eph 2:2, 3 In which at one time you walked [habitually]. You were following the course and fashion of this world [were under the sway of the tendency of this present age], following the prince of the power of the air. [You were obedient to and under the control of] the [demon] spirit that still constantly works in the sons of disobedience [the careless, the rebellious, and the unbelieving, who go against the purposes of God]. Among these we as well as you once lived and conducted ourselves in the passions of our flesh [our behavior governed by our corrupt and sensual nature], obeying the impulses of the flesh and the thoughts of the mind [our cravings dictated by our senses and our dark imaginings]. We were then by nature children of [God's] wrath and heirs of [His] indignation, like the rest of mankind. (Amplified Version)

There certainly are demonic influences that are in everyone’s life. (I do not believe influence is the same as possession). There is carnality. What is behind the carnally and demonically influenced behavior, however, is a God created need. These needs should draw us to God and family to live in community. If we are stubborn in our independence we will continually struggle. Many have preached a certain legalism that states God is angry at us for not straightening this stuff out. This adds to our feelings of insecurity, that we are only loved, accepted and valued if we meet certain conditions.

These messages basically say, “suck it up”, almost like a sports coach with his team. They put pressure on us to perform and they add condemnation and guilt when we fail to meet the standard. This is not an environment where we can feel secure and valued unconditionally and therefore we are not free to let down our walls of independence and trust that through God and family our needs will be met.

I believe God is restoring a foundation of love to His church in this hour. This base of love will restore fathers to children and children to fathers, Malachi 4:6. Fathers and mothers in Christ are arising that know how to show real and freeing love to the children God brings. This move will change God’s reputation on the earth. His body will no longer be viewed as a self-righteous group who point out others faults and who communicate a message of judgment to people like the backslidden or the homosexuals. God’s body will be a safe place, where pre-Christians; the hurting, the bound and hurt person can go and find a love so powerful and freeing that it casts out all their fears (1 John 4:18) and sets them free to trust and walk in humility and interdependence!

Filed Under: Father's Love, How to Change Tagged With: Father's Love

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