The Father’s Heart of Love

           Overcoming false images of the Father:  MAIN HEALING LESSON 10

This teaching on confidence in God's love is just one of the 24 lessons in our workbook for personal transformation, "Matters of the Heart." All 24 lessons will be helpful to the person seeking restoration and freedom and have been posted on this web site. They are available as a complete set in our workbook which can be purchased as a download or ordered through the mail. The lessons are also available on CD and DVD as 24, 1/2 hour teachings. All scriptures are from the NKJV unless otherwise noted.
 

Introduction

In the previous lesson we looked at how Jesus is restoring to us the lost vision of our true humanity. We saw that the image of ourselves we carry in our hearts must match up with who we are as new creations remade in His image, or we will unwittingly block our own growth with false understandings of who we are. Even so, Jesus, because He is fully human and fully divine, also restores to us a true Image of what our Father is really like. It is an incredible thing that God can restore to us these two glorious images, once lost and broken through the Fall—by means of revealing the God-man, our Lord Jesus Christ!

Watch these short videos about the Father's love on our YouTube channel.
Praying for Cat Healing
     Does God care about kittens? You bet He does!
God Cracks Me Up!
     God really does have a delightful sense of humor!
 

Teaching summary

We are created to bear God’s image
Image is everything in the spiritual life. Not the image we can recite—but the image we carry deep within our heart. The image we hold of God the Father hidden away deep in our hearts will determine how we will seek the Father, how we will respond to what He allows in our lives, and how we will act towards others. Jesus kept His eyes constantly on the true Image of the Father—and all that He did flowed out of seeking to reveal the Father's Heart of love (John 14:9-11). This is the all essential matter of keeping the heart set rightly (Proverbs 4:23).

The idea we have of Father God is often mis-shaped by Adam’s nature, earthly fathers and church tradition. It can be a fallen image buried in our heart distorting the true Image.

1) Adam’s nature is in all of us: it seeks to hide from God in fear and shame.

2) Our fathers (and mothers) may have been distant, over-bearing, unaffectionate, abusive, harsh in discipline, angry in punishment, sinful, threatening.

3) Our spiritual fathers (and mothers), even beloved pastors and teachers may have planted wrong images of the Father as somehow different in His heart towards us than Jesus.

None of these distorted images reveal the true nature of the God Jesus called His Father. They really resemble the enemy instead. These false images must be cast down! We cast them down, first by forgiving the ones who sowed distorted images in us; then by renouncing the lie and confessing the truth.

Our fathers (and mothers) can contribute to a distorted image of Father God, because they are as a god to us when we are little—teaching us right from wrong and exercising power over us. As children we are looking to see God in our fathers—all the more so since our hearts are blocked from knowing the heavenly Father’s Heart of love and presence by the sin nature. No earthly father entirely measures up, but a solid foundation of affection, love and proper discipline makes a huge difference in forming who we will grow up to become.
 

Our hearts yearn to know a father's love

4 things we needed our fathers to say to us

• I love you.  You are my beloved child.
• I’m glad you were born.
• I’m proud of you.
• You’re a good son (or daughter).

Every home needs a godly father
Godly order in scripture shows us that the head of the woman is the man; the head of the man is Christ; the head of Christ is the Father. The father sets the emotional tone of a household. The first word babies often say is “dada.” God defends the fatherless. Fathers and/or husbands who are not spiritually covering their families leave children as orphans and wives as widows.

Pure and undefiled religion before God and the Father is this: to visit orphans and widows in their trouble, and to keep oneself unspotted from the world. James 1:27
 

Facts about failed fathering
In the USA 94% of prisoners are males; 95% of those on death row hated their fathers. Many prisoners don’t even know who their fathers were: “It doesn’t matter who my father was; it matters how I remember he was.”
 
How we relate to God the Father
People often think they begin with knowing God the Father. Actually we only know Him by Name as Father God, but relate to Him more as “the great high God.” Jesus came to reveal Him personally and much more intimately as Abba, just as He also came to baptize us with the Holy Spirit. The order of the 3 great pilgrimage feasts reveals something about our new life in Christ that is very interesting. Passover comes first. It relates to Jesus. Next comes Pentecost which relates to the Holy Spirit. Finally, after a long growth period, Tabernacles, the Feast of Harvest, relates to the Father. The revelation of the Father is not automatic, but it is absolutely needed for establishing our hearts in grace.
 

The revelation of the Father’s glorious grace

God the Father revealed His glory to Moses.

And the LORD passed before him and proclaimed, "The LORD, the LORD God, merciful and gracious, longsuffering, and abounding in goodness and truth… Exodus 34:6

This is the glory that we all fall short of revealing—the glory of The Father’s Love and Mercy.

…for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God… Romans 3:23

So great is His glorious grace and mercy that our Father in heaven does not even hold our sins against us. He hates our sins and in His goodness will work to bring us to repentance over them so that we can be cleansed of them, but He does not impute them to us.

…God was in Christ reconciling the world to Himself, not imputing their trespasses to them... 2 Corinthians 5:18-19 

Jesus came to reveal the Father and restore His true image to us—by His life and death.

Jesus said to him, "I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through Me." John 14:6

Philip said to Him, "Lord, show us the Father, and it is sufficient for us." Jesus said to him, "Have I been with you so long, and yet you have not known Me, Philip? He who has seen Me has seen the Father; so how can you say, 'Show us the Father'? Do you not believe that I am in the Father, and the Father in Me? John 14:8-10

God the Father expressed His love for Jesus
There are three words of God that Jesus audibly heard recorded in scripture. The true Father affirmed and loved His Son.

• At His baptism (Matthew 3:17)
• On the mount of transfiguration (Luke 9:35)
• Before the cross (John 12:28)
   

The Father has the same love for you
He desires to affirm and express His love to you and has already in scripture.

…for the Father Himself loves you, because you have loved Me, and have believed that I came forth from God. John 16:27

…I in them, and You in Me; that they may be made perfect in one, and that the world may know that You have sent Me, and have loved them as You have loved Me. John 17:23  
 

This is what our gracious Father is really like!

1) The Father delights to give us the Kingdom.

Do not fear, little flock, for it is your Father's good pleasure to give you the kingdom. Luke 12:32 

2) The Father has no darkness about Him—there is no shadow or possibility of evil.

This is the message which we have heard from Him and declare to you, that God is light and in Him is no darkness at all. 1 John 1:5

Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, and comes down from the Father of lights, with whom there is no variation or shadow of turning. James 1:17

3) The Father disciplines only in love—it is the goodness of God that draws us to repent.

For whom the LORD loves He corrects, just as a father the son in whom he delights. Proverbs 3:12

Or do you despise the riches of His goodness, forbearance, and longsuffering, not knowing that the goodness of God leads you to repentance? Romans 2:4

4) The Father is unconditional love—gives His rain to just and unjust alike.

But I say to you, love your enemies, bless those who curse you, do good to those who hate you, and pray for those who spitefully use you and persecute you, that you may be sons of your Father in heaven; for He makes His sun rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the just and on the unjust. Matthew 5:44-45

5) The Father is totally reconciled to us the way we are—completely accepted in Christ.

…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

…that is, that God was in Christ reconciling the world to Himself, not imputing their trespasses to them, and has committed to us the word of reconciliation. 2 Corinthians 5:19

6) Here is the idea made simple—the Father is just like Jesus! 

I and My Father are one. John 10:30

The Father's Heart of love is most powerfully revealed at the cross of Christ in sending Jesus to die on our behalf. His love is the source and the summit of our entire journey. If this is Who God really is to you and for you, then actually knowing and believing it will produce joy and peace in you and love through you in any moment of your life in which you touch this living reality by faith (Romans 15:13).  Faith is what puts us in touch with REALITY.  Not to live in a faith like this is to live a bad dream from which One Day we will all be awakened in His Presence. 

Why not awaken now?
 

Interested in going deeper?

Don't just give these truths a "head bob"!
For further study and for help working these truths into your heart and life, see The Father's Heart of Love part 2 (Head to Heart Guide 10) and "work out" with exercises, discussion questions, review of main points, digging deeper, more scriptures, model prayers, renunciations/affirmations and practical steps of life application.

Or better yet, let us minister to you in person
     --at one of our Savannah Seminars...