Back to the Father Heart
Early one morning, I was awoken from my sleep by a
repeating phrase on my mind “You are created by love, through love and for
love”. I was quite certain that this phrase is not in the scripture and yet
somehow had this witness in my spirit that the spirit of God was trying to
communicate something to me. As I searched through the Scripture, the spirit of
God began to enlighten my understanding from this verse, “For by Him, all things were created that are in
heaven and that are on earth…all things were created through Him and for
Him” (Col.1:16)
In this verse, “Him” refers to Christ and Christ is
Love as God is Love (1 Jn. 4:8), thus we are created by love, through love and
for love. Humans are made to exist in an environment of love – both receiving
love and giving love. We are created to be fulfilled by love and only the
creator of love can fill up and restore the love deficit we experienced in our
growing up years to a love credit. Hence, one of the most important elements to
healing & restoring our inner child is coming back to Father, the creator
of love, to re-parent us and to restore our love credit, to restore our true
identity and lead us to the road of healing and transformation.
It is no secret that human being needs affection to
thrive. If we do not receive love and learn to give it away, we may suffer
emotionally and relationally and never reach our God-given potential. God, Himself,
said in Genesis 2:18 “It is not good that man should be
alone.” Adam lived in a sin-free world and had unbroken fellowship with
the Lord and yet God said “It is not good”. What
was Adam lacking? Human intimacy! Something in us is incomplete when we lack
intimacy with others.
There are generally four kinds of love in human
relationship:
Family
love - affectionate
love between family members, especially parents and child or among siblings
Friendship love – affectionate love
between friends as we can see in Jonathan & David (1Sam.18:1; 2Sam.1:26)
Agape love - God's kind of
love
Our perception and comprehension of God’s agape love
is very much affected by our family love. The vast majority of the human family
have had deeply negative experiences with their earthly fathers. Thus, many of
us have a distorted perception of how God’s fatherly heart is towards us. Because
we live in a world where the image of the father brings disappointment, fear,
shame and other negative emotions, most of us have not experienced the tender
touch of a loving father. The Devil seeks to use the pain of unfulfilled
longing to confuse and deceive us so we seek to answer this longing in wrong
ways.
Research has found that 90% of how we response or
react to lives situation and how we perceive, how we process pain and analyse a
situation is very much influence by our subconscious mind. Hence, our own experience with human authority is usually transferred over to how
we relate to God. The same fear of opening our heart to receive love from
others will also repel God’s love. Many consciously pursue God’s love but
subconsciously reject His love.
If Father God is seen as harsh, judgmental, and
distant and out to punish us when we fail, it will cause us to run away from Him
in fear and rebellion, or merely conform to a system of rules. It will also
cause us to become harsh on ourselves. On the other hand, if God is seen as one
who accepts and loves unconditionally, loves to comfort, minister and heal, it
will cause us to want to draw closer to Him and seek to please Him.
Due to the love deficit in our own soul, many find
it difficult to receive and give love, but instead live for self- love, that is
seeking to get their unhealed needs met. We are basically afraid of intimacy.
Either because of a deficiency of expressed parental love or because we had experienced
some traumatic form of rejection in the past, we set up boundaries to keep
people out so that we can protect ourselves from the pain of more rejection.
This may hinder us from having an intimate fellowship with God and healthy
relationship with others. At the core of this is fear.
God wants us to hear His affirming voice and be
secure in His love. If only we have entered that rest of trusting that He loves
us and will take care of us “casting all your care upon
Him, for He cares for you” (1Pet.5:7), we will not be seeking the
affirmation of others. This is a very vital and significant factor for healing
our inner child and releasing us from our co-dependence trait of seeking
approval from people.
If we are uncomfortable with ourselves, we will be
uncomfortable with others. Our self-image will determine the depth of our
intimacy with others and with God. Our self-image which comes from our identity
should not be derived from our achievement or status in the society nor the
approval of people but on being “in Christ”. The
scripture says it aptly, “when people commend
themselves (or commend by others) it doesn’t count for much. The important
thing is for the Lord to commend them” (2Cor.10:18) NLT
Our adversary Satan often works through others,
especially through our parents or authorities over us, to ingrain into us that
we are loved only if we perform well enough to earn God’s love. This is a great
lie of the evil one. Our heavenly Father loves us for who we are and not based
on our performances in our studies, family, career or ministry. God loves us as
a human being, not on our doing.
God’s love for us depends on who He is and not what we are. No
matter whom we are or who we were, no matter what we have done, no matter what
the circumstances, God’s love for us never wavers or weaken but continually
beat in His heart at a steady pace. Indeed Paul says that he is “persuaded that neither death nor life, nor angels
nor principalities nor powers, nor things present nor things to come, nor
height nor depth, nor any other created thing, shall be able to separate us
from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord”(Rom. 8:38-39). Are we fully persuaded? Are we fully convicted?
Are we fully established and grounded in the eternal immutable, unchangeable
fact and truth that GOD LOVES US UNCONDITIONALLY?
As long as there is one iota or one micron of a doubt still in our
beings that God does not love us, the enemy will turn it against us and it will
hinder us from experiencing all that God wants for us. We need to be utterly
grounded and rooted in the eternal understanding that God loves us (Ephesians
3:17-19).
Father heart of God and Jesus
It has been ingrained in the mind-set of many
Christians that we sinners are protected from the wrath of the Father God only
because of the righteousness of Jesus. This gives us the impression and belief
in the sub-consciousness of our mind that Jesus is compassionate and merciful,
but the stern Father is perpetually angry with us. While this truth can foster
a deep and grateful relationship with Jesus, subconsciously, it can hinder our
intimacy with our Father God if we do not have a good understanding of the
character and nature of God the Father.
God loves us AS much as He loves Jesus and revealed His love for
us through Jesus. The whole story of redemption was not just that we might have
our sins forgiven and be made whole again – rather the whole story of
redemption was that through Christ Jesus, God would succeed in showing us how
much and how greatly He loves us; that He loves us AS much as He loves Jesus
“that
the world may know that You have sent Me, and have loved them as You have loved
me. (John 17:23).
The holy, almighty, infinite, creator God desires to
be known to us as a Father and He is a merciful, gentle, gracious and loving
Father. However, His character and nature is misunderstood as a result of poor
modelling of many earthly fathers & the wrong theology of the father heart
of God.
Let’s look at some unhealthy models of earthly
fathers:
Authoritative
Father – He uses us
Strong and dominating, not much negotiation is
allowed. He does not consider about feelings, desires and emotional needs – but
only that his authority is to be obeyed. Rules with an iron rod, believes that
children can only be seen but not heard. Has great expectation on success.
Always rewards success and condemns or punishes failure.
If
we grow up in this kind of environment, then we will tend to relate to God in
terms of service and sacrifices. Our focus is only on ministry and not
relationship. Ministry, project and church policy is our end results instead of
people. We forget that the most important thing in the ministry is to love God
and love people.
We
cannot see that God has concerns over our emotional needs and desires to lavish
His love upon us. We are like the elder brother of the prodigal son, who never
fully understood the father’s love for him, and always try to please the father
through performance “…these many years I have been
serving you; I never transgressed your commandment at any time; and yet you
never gave me a young goat, that I might make merry with my friends…”. The
father replied “you are always with me, and all that I have is yours” (Lk.15:29,
31). Like him, many of us do not know how to enjoy the abundant love of
our Father God. We find it difficult to
rest in the unconditional love of God and instead, always strive for acceptance
from God and people, prioritising man’s approval above God’s approval. In other
words, fearing man more than God.
Abusive
Father – He harms us
A father that is always moody and angry, causing
much pain and hurting us emotionally, mentally, physically and sometimes even
sexually.
If
we grow up in this kind of environment, we tend to develop a love-hate
relationship with God our Father. Cognitively we know that God is a good and
loving God, however, subconsciously, we believe that He only had His own glory
in mind and is prepared to sacrifice us for any cause. We are just one of the
subjects on His chessboard to be used to ultimately defeat His enemy.
We
struggle to love God with all our heart, soul and spirit, and to fully
surrender our lives and lay down our rights for Him. Also, we will have
difficulty in receiving love and giving love fully. If we do not receive
healing, some of us may even fear having their own children and parenting as we
had no concept of love.
Absent
Father – He doesn’t care
This is usually due to divorce, abandonment or a workaholic
father, sacrificing the family at the altar of their personal ambitions.
This
is the most common kind of pattern we have in the society today. Most fathers
do not get to spend time with their children except only on weekends and their
children become “orphans” due to the demand of their career or ministry. He is
simply not there for them physically, emotionally and spiritually. In the Asian culture, this is even more
prevalent as fathers are seen as the provider while mothers take up the
nurturing role.
If
we grow up in this kind of environment, it is difficult to trust God fully,
especially in time of need. We tend to feel lonely and despair even though we
know in the scripture that God is omnipresent and a God of all comforts. We
tend to work out things with our own strength and find security in our own
planning. We know God is there but emotionally, He is very far away. We cannot
sense His sweet presence and thoroughly embrace His love.
Passive
Father – He is not interested
Emotionally distant and hardly or minimally communicate
and express his affection. He loves his children but
rarely says so. He is passive, physically
present, but emotionally unavailable and never engages his children.
If
we grow up in this kind of environment, it makes us think that God does not
feel our pain or share our joy. We cannot imagine that God rejoices over us and
desire to be intimately close with us and thus is unable to relate to Him as a
father. We think that apart from salvation, He is not really involved in the
minor thing of our lives.
In
Lk.12:7, why does the bible says that “the very hairs
of your head are all numbered”? God is not concerned with abstract
mathematics or keeping nitty gritty data of our body parts but because He's trying to tell
us in what detail He knows us and cares about our lives.
Different ways of how we relate to
God. Let’s consider a few:
The
Creator – We acknowledge Him as God of the universe, the
Lord of lords and King and kings. We see Him as Almighty, Omnipotent (infinite
in power), Omniscient (having complete or unlimited knowledge,
awareness, or
understanding; perceiving
all things),
and Omnipresent (present everywhere at the same time). We relate to Him as subjects, as a servant
and we learn obedience, laying down our rights, surrendering our all to Him.
Friend
–
In Jn.15:15, Jesus says He no longer treats us as servants but has called us
friends “No longer do I call you servants, for a
servant does not know what his master is doing, but I have called you friends,
and all things that I heard from My Father I have made known to you” where
He shared His secrets with us just like how the Father shared with Abraham
before He destroyed Sodom & Gomorrah (Gen.18:17 –
“Shall I hide from Abraham what I am doing?”)
As a friend we can share with Him our struggles,
pain, shame or any disappointment. With Jesus as our most intimate friend, we
can be alone and yet not lonely as we have someone who always there to listen
to us, someone who weep with us and rejoice with us.
Groom
& Bride – In the gospels, Jesus many times
refer to Himself as the bridegroom and in the book of Rev.21:9, we are known to
be “the bride, the Lamb’s wife”. In Isa.54:5, we
also learn that the Lord our “Maker is our husband”. In
fact, in the book of Solomon we learn that as our bridegroom, he is passionate
about us and desires to have an intimate relationship with us.
All these portrayals of God are certainly accurate but not
complete. In the new covenant, Jesus introduces a new concept of how we can
relate to Almighty God… as a loving Father. And as Father, there is only one
way that we can relate to Him, and that is as His little child as an Omni
personal (all personal) God, a God who knows and loves us as individuals and
not only as corporate human beings.
Father
and Son – In Lk.11:1-2, when the disciples asked Jesus to
teach them how to pray, Jesus began by asking them to address God as their
Father – a call and recognition to relationship first. He wanted them to have the confidence of the
Father’s love for them, to trust in His protection, provision, tenderness.
Until & unless we are connected healthily and effectively with the Father,
understanding His heartbeat and amazing love for His children, we cannot be
confident and effective in our prayers.
There are many reasons why Jesus came to manifest
himself on this earth; one of the main reasons was to make God known as a
Father. Jesus came to demonstrate who the Father is and what He is like. Jesus
came to reveal the Father to us. Thus, through Jesus’ life and ministry we can
understand more of the Father heart of God.
Philip, one of Jesus’ followers, echoed a sentiment
that many Christians today would still say, “show us
the Father, and it is enough for us” (Jn.14:8). Jesus’ response is very
telling “Have I been so long with you, and yet you have
not come to know me…he who has seen Me has seen the Father…do you not believe
that I am in the Father, and the father is in me…” (Jn.14:9-10). And
again in John 10:30, he asserted “I and My Father are
one”.
Jesus is the image of the invisible God and the
exact representation of God’s nature “He is the image
of the invisible God” (Col.1:15) and again in Heb.1:4 “…the express image of His person”. The nature of the
father is the same as that of Jesus. Everything Jesus did on earth, including
his sacrificial death on the cross, shows us the heart of the father - a heart
of love and compassion, not one of wrath and judgement.
However, when some people hear the word "father," the word
conjures up painful memories of authoritative control, domestic abuse,
abandonment, alcoholism or frightening punishments. Others associate
"father" with a numb detachment—because they never connected
emotionally with their dads. These are called "father wounds"—and
there is a maternal version too. Don't let the mistakes of our imperfect
parents keep us from enjoying God's pure, gentle and unconditional love.
There are also many Christian who are not consciously
relating to God as Father and often direct their prayers to Jesus or even to
the Holy Spirit. The desire of Jesus is that we learn to relate or connect to
God as a Father when we come to him in prayer or communion. In Jn.15:16 &
16:23, twice Jesus taught his disciples to “ask the
Father in My name…”
This is a privilege that the O.T saints do not have. All the O.T saints – Abraham, Moses, Elijah, Samuel, etc. cannot call
God “Father”. It takes the sacrificial death of
Jesus to give us a way to call God, "Father." In the Scripture,
every time when Jesus makes reference to God, He always relates to Him as
Father and God is referred to as ‘Father’ over 250 times in the New Testament.
The first time that the
word “Abba” is used in relationship to God in the Bible is when Jesus was in
the Garden of Gethsemane in Mk.14:36. “Abba”, an Aramaic word, expressed the
simplest way for a Hebrew child to call out to his father. In the English language,
it would be like us crying out “daddy” or “pa-pa”, an intimate way of
addressing our father; a term of endearment. And in Rom.8:15, the scripture
says that we all have “received the Spirit of
adoption by whom we cry out, ‘Abba, Father’”. It
simply means that we can all walk intimately with the Father as Jesus did.
Nonetheless,
many of us believe in God but few understand His heart as a loving Father and to
fully entrust our lives to Him. In Lam.5:3, Jeremiah lamented that the
Israelites were like orphans “we have become orphans…” However,
in Jn.14:18, Jesus promised not to leave us orphans. He wanted us to connect
with the Father and get to know the Father after He leaves the earth. In fact,
one of Jesus’ most important missions on this earth is to reveal to us the
Father heart of God. Theologically we
are all precious children of God, however, emotionally many of us live like
orphans, struggling
with fear & anxiety and do not really rest in the love of the Father.
An orphan’s heart breeds insecure, fearful hearts. On the contrary, “perfect
love casts out fear” (1Jn.4:18)
Forgiveness
from the Father heart of God
In the book of Genesis, when God appear to Abraham
and promised him a son, it recorded Sarah’s unbelief, “Sarah
laughed within herself saying, ‘after I have grown old shall I have pleasure,
my lord being old also’…” (Gen.18:12-15). However, in Heb.11:11, it
recorded Sarah’s faith “By faith, Sarah herself also
received strength to conceive seed, and she bore a child when she was past the
age, because she judged Him faithful who had promised”. Why is the
scripture contradicting?
I believe that that story in Genesis was recorded
for human benefit so that we could identify with the weaknesses of godly men
and women. However, the book of Hebrew, records how it’s recorded in the book
of remembrance about us.
We see also the failure of David with Bathsheba
& the murder of her husband Uriah in the book of 2 Samuel 11, and also
about his pride when he numbered Israel
and Judah which resulted in the death of seventy thousand men (2Sam.24:1,
10-15). However, in the book of Acts 13:22, it recorded him as “a man after God’s own heart” despite all these
failure.
Resisting forgiveness is actually subtle pride. Remembering
how rotten we were can subconsciously make us feel good. Do not be succumbed to
guilt and shame “there is no condemnation to those who
are in Christ Jesus…” (Rom.8:1).
Ancient Paths
When God created Adam & Eve, He made them in His
own image and established a path; a culture for them to live. However, since
sin came into the world, men have slowly and gradually deviated further and
further from this ancient path. In Jer.6:16, God through the prophet is calling
his people back to this path “See & ask for the
ancient paths, where the good way is and walk in it; then you will find rest
for your souls”.
The Hebrew meaning for ‘ancient’ is old, concealed,
hidden, and timeless, from eternity. God is now instructing us through Jeremiah
to see and ask for the ancient path for it is the “Good
way…and find rest for our souls”.
What
is the ancient path, the eternal path that leads to rest for our souls? In John
17:3, Jesus says “this is eternal life, that they may
know Him, the only true God…” Thus, what God is exhorting us through his
prophet Jeremiah is to come back to the Father and know his heartbeat for us
that we may truly find rest for our soul. We need to re-attach our umbilical cord to the
Father – we need to unlearn our experience of human love & relearn the true
love of the Father in order to rebuild, restore our emotional immune system and
heal our inner child.
Love of God
Story of the prodigal son
In
Lk.15:11-32, we have the contrast of two sons who had grown up and lived with
the same father. One is a transgressor and the other law abiding. The saddest
thing was that both did not know the heart of their father.
The
younger son did not return home for the sake of his father. He was never
concerned that his father’s pain of missing him and worrying about him. He was
only interested in himself. He never saw the
yeaning and loving heart of his father.
Like the younger son, most Christian cannot see that
God desires us & rejoices over us. After all, He created and owns
everything. He could create anything to bring Him pleasure, He could
self-entertain endlessly. However, the bible tells us He longs for each one of
us personally, as a friend, son and even a lover “as
the bridegroom rejoices over the bride, so shall your God rejoice over you”
(Isa.62:5).
The
parable of the prodigal son is not primarily about a son who lost his
inheritance but about a father who lost his son and how the father got his son
back. A primary emotional need that we
all have is the assurance that we are enjoyed by God the Father even in our
weakness and failure. This comes first by the revelation that the Father longs
for us and enjoys us.
In
fact, in Luke chapter 15, He used three stories to reveal His love to us; the
parable of the lost sheep, the parable of the lost coin and finally, the
parable of the lost son. He was telling us that He is deeply interested in us.
He has a plan for our life. He feels our pain. He wants us to know that His
heart is towards us and His eyes are always on us. As a point of fact, God “indelibly imprinted (tattooed a picture of us) on the palm
of each of His hands” (Isa.49:15 AMP)
The
Elder Son
He
never understood the generosity of God. He was law abiding and very thrifty
since he had never had a party with his friends before. He had no confidence in
his father's generosity and love. His father had made it clear that everything
was his to use. It was not the father who stopped him but it was his own
perception of the father that prevented him from enjoying the father's
generosity (The poverty mentality).
He never understood the
heart of his father. He never saw his father’s grief and hurt when he was
deprived of the younger son. He did not share
the same compassion the father had for his younger brother. He was in fact
angry and did not love his brother. When we do not have the father heart of God
in us, we lose the love for people, we envy and are jealous over others’
success and feel that they do not deserve it. We do not understand the mercy,
grace and compassion of God.
One
son was too involved in satisfying his own desires; the other son was too
involved in work and duty to be with his father but had no love. We can be
working hard for Him but our heart is not connected to Him.
In
a similar way, we who are believers all share the same Father as our Lord Jesus
Christ. But do we know the Father? Do we truly know His love? Do we feel His
heartbeat? Do we know His love for all of His creation?
In1Jn.4:19,
we learn that we cannot love God with all our heart until we know He loves us
with all His heart. “We love Him because (we understand that) He first
loved us”. We need to restore the 1st commandment into our
lives before we can fulfill the 2nd commandment or the great
commission. This is God’s first priority in our life “You
shall love the Lord your God with all your soul, and with all your mind. This
is the first and great commandment. And the second is like it: ‘you shall love
your neighbor as yourself’” (Matt.22:37-38)
It
is often because of rejection that we fear to love God and trust Him with our
entire lives. Having not seen unconditional love amongst humans, it is
difficult for us to believe that God so love us unconditionally. “God is love (1 John 4:16)”, we cannot flee from the
presence of God’s love. If we “ascend to the heavens,
He is there and even if we make your bed in hell, He is there” (Psalm 139:7-9).
Like Paul, we must be “persuaded that neither death
nor life, nor angels nor principalities nor powers, nor things present nor
things to come, nor height nor depth, nor any other created thing, shall be
able to separate us from the love of God which is in Christ our Lord “(Romans
8:38-39). There is no way God will ever stop loving us and there is no
place we can go where His love cannot reach us. It is always us who reject
God’s love. But if we choose to always respond to His love, we will find His
love everywhere.
Once
divinely connected to a permanent state of love in God and towards God, we will
find an everlasting supply of love. For we will never suffer the loss of love
from God and this truth in itself should bring healing and restoration to our
wounded soul and sustain our ability to love throughout our entire lives. It
should undergird every pain and suffering that we need to endure when we
understand the love of God. The greatest, yes indeed, the greatest is love (1
Corinthians 13:13).
We need to pursue the “Great I AM” in order to
receive healing from the distorted “I am”.
The agape love of God will turn our love deficits into love credits. All
true identity starts with Him. Is not who I am but rather whose I am. “May the Lord direct your hearts into the love of God…”
(2Thess.3:5)
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