Monday, January 23, 2017

Turning the Hearts of the Children



God, who at various times and in various ways spoke in time past to the fathers by the prophets, has in these last days spoken to us by His Son, whom He has appointed heir of all things, through whom also He made the worlds; who being the brightness of His glory and the express image of His person, and upholding all things by the word of His power, when He had by Himself purged our sins, sat down at the right hand of the Majesty on high… (Heb. 1:1-3).

I grew up without a father.  My father abandoned my mother when she was three months pregnant with me.  He left and never looked back.  Any child growing up without the blessing of a father knows the emptiness, rejection, and anger that can accompany fatherlessness.  We are now living in a period where the majority of young people have grown up fatherless, either by abandonment or neglect.  Since the higher courts of this nation escorted God out of public life in the early sixties, several generations grew up without a true knowledge of their Father in heaven.  The toll has been tragic, but hope lives, because the most unprecedented move of God the world has ever seen is at hand.


The Lord Jesus is the exact representation of the Father in all of His personality and attributes.  Although the focus of His incarnation manifested in redemption for man, the mission of His incarnation revealed the express image of the Father.  He came to be the perfect Man who would undo all the first man, Adam, did in his rebellion.  God came in human flesh, using human touch and human emotions to reveal to us exactly who the Father is and how He really feels about us.  All that we need to know about God is revealed in the Son in His humanity, so every dimension of our lives can experience the Creator’s wonder, intimacy and union.  All of this is doctrinally sound, and can be readily comprehended by the mind.  Yet in the lives and experience of many Christians, this remains only a concept.  No matter how good the doctrine is, and no matter how eloquently it is preached and taught, human beings still need examples they can see, feel and experience before it becomes “real”.

For this reason I bow my knees to the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, from whom the whole family in heaven and earth is named, that He would grant you, according to the riches of His glory, to be strengthened with might through His Spirit in the inner man, 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 (Eph. 3:14-19).
 
I am convinced that one of the biggest deceptions and bondages in the church is a false image of the Father’s true identity.  When some people hear the term “father”, they respond in fear, disgust or loathing because of the experience and example they had growing up.  Some have no frame of reference for its meaning because of being abandoned or rejected.  The only thing they experience at the word “father” is resentment, insecurity and shame.  Others had wonderful, loving fathers who interacted with them, but were not godly examples of Christ, and therefore have perpetuated generational sin instead of generational blessing and power.  The relationship with the father is the single most important relationship in the life of a child, and it is also the most important perception and experience in the life of a child of God.  The foundation of a healthy relationship with God begins with understanding the jealous, burning love and desire the Father has for weak, broken and struggling humans.

The apostle John wrote:

That which was from the beginning, which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we have looked upon, and our hands have handled, concerning the Word of life--the life was manifested, and we have seen, and bear witness, and declare to you that eternal life which was with the Father and was manifested to us… (1 John 1:1-2).

There is no substitute for personal contact.  This biblical principle provides a foundation for our wholeness as human beings.  A theology without experience is useless.  Such belief and doctrine illustrate how deeply Greek philosophy has penetrated the theological framework of the church of Jesus Christ.  The Hebrew concept of reality, by definition, was experiential, and not just conceptual.  After the time of Augustine and Aquinas, influential parts of the church began embracing theology as theory without experience.  I do agree with the conclusions of the early church fathers that the Greek philosophers had a measure of light, but the “spirit of Greece” has so permeated the church, that many feel that if we have our doctrine correct, then we are “right” with God.  There are plenty of people that I know that have correct doctrine, but are full of hypocrisy, pride, ambition, envy, lust, bitterness, ad infinitum.  One five-minute encounter with the risen Lord destroyed a lifetime of bad theology and hatred in the life of the apostle Paul.  Because God created us with such a capacity for pleasure, feeling and wonderment, every facet of our lives needs to be converted by our experience and encounter with God.  Because of this, a fatherless generation is in desperate need of an experience of Father-God that will touch mind, emotions, will and body.

I had an incredible revelation break into my heart while sitting in the Chicago airport years ago, waiting for a connecting flight.  The revelation: men and women are different.  Men are masculine and women are feminine.  I know the blinding light that is emanating from this revelation has probably caused many of the readers to be slain in the Spirit, but I must tell what has been revealed to me.  Because men and women are different, by clever, inductive reasoning, I began to understand that fathers and mothers are different.  All kidding aside, this is something the church must accept and understand.    In scripture, the Lord refers to Himself as being exactly like the Father (John 14:9), and also as our Bridegroom (Matt. 9:15).  The church is referred to as the bride of Christ. (John 3:29; 2 Cor. 11:2; Eph. 5:31-32; Rev. 21:2, 9; Rev. 22:17.)  The soul of the Christian before the Lord is feminine to His masculine.  We understand that there is neither male nor female in Christ. (Gal. 3:28.)  What makes us masculine or feminine is strictly DNA and hormonal activity causing the physical (and possibly mental) characteristics of gender.    If, in the spiritual realm, the Lord is masculine and the church is referred to as feminine, then we can never become Christlike by looking at and experiencing only “church.”  The scripture says that we only become Christlike by beholding His glory. (2 Cor. 3:18.)  One of the greatest problems in western Christianity is churches modeling themselves after other churches that have had success.  We can never become the conquering, overcoming church Jesus said we would be (Matt. 16:18), until we see and experience Him, the overcoming, conquering Man, Christ Jesus.  We have an effeminate, non-threatening church in most western countries that tries with all its might to be non-confrontational and inoffensive.  I was even told the story of one pastor in our local area that was called to open a Red Cross briefing meeting during volunteer disaster training because of hurricane Katrina.  Several thousand people showed up to volunteer to help the many hurting and displaced evacuees at his church, which hosted the meeting.  During the opening part of the meeting, he ended in prayer, praying “in Jesus name.”  Later at the end of the meeting, before everyone left, he returned to the microphone and apologized to any Jewish or non-Christians who were present for praying “in Jesus name.”  This pastor effectually denied Jesus before men for the sake of being politically correct and inoffensive.  I appreciate the desire to be sensitive, but dying, hell-bound people need the truth.  The church has been emasculated of the image and likeness of Christ by Jezebelic forces that have rendered us spiritually impotent.  This is quite a contrast to the One who confronted corruption, healed the sick, cast out demons, and threw the idols and idolaters out of the Temple. (Matt. 21:12-14.)  The church has lost its power because it has lost its intimacy, contact and experience of the Father.

Jesus is the kind, compassionate, forgiving Healer-Shepherd to the woman taken in adultery needing mercy in her time of greatest need.  But He also appears as the Lion of Judah to the powers of darkness who have afflicted and bound people, and to the hypocritical, controlling religious system of His day that effectually kept those who desired a relationship with God from getting to Him to find help in their time of need. (See Matt. 21:12-14.)  If we do not see the composite picture of Jesus, we will not see the Father, who tenderly cares for us in His mercy, but who also rises as a Warrior (Isaiah 42:13, Psalm 18), on behalf of His beloved.

No matter how much we look at a woman, we will not see a man.  We need both natural and spiritual mothers and fathers.  Both parents impart invaluable things to their children.  Without mothers and fathers, naturally and spiritually, we grow up emotionally and spiritually dysfunctional.  But the greatest present need in the church are spiritual fathers as examples of Christ.  The Father desires a family of mature sons and daughters who have reached the full measure of the stature of Christ. (Eph. 4:13.)  For centuries the church has focused on the church, and the church, not the Father, has been the example for the church.  We cannot look to the church for what only the Father can impart.  We must focus on and experience Jesus.  It is in and through Him that we will experience the fullness of the Father.

Questions for Reflection:

What have your spiritual mothers and fathers imparted to you?

How has the churches focus on the church negatively impacted our relationship with the father?


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