In February I was given the amazing opportunity to deliver a Simonette to the IHOP community on at one of our Friday night Encountering God Services. I spoke on the Father Heart of God. While I was working on and developing this message, it dawned on me that since my Father died in 2008, this message has been the single most reality that has brought such comfort to my heart. There have been ups and downs as is true whenever a loved one dies. In my low points when I have cried out because of the injustice of my Father’s sudden death, often all I could cry out was ‘Father God, Abba Father!’ The following is a summary of what I spoke on:
There is nothing that will empower our spirit like encountering the Father Heart of God. It creates a confidence in our spirit and an assurance before the troubles of the future; even in the midst of our failure, we have confidence. It gives us the resolve to go forward with all of our hearts, so that even when we fail and stumble in our weakness, we run to God instead of from God.
Jesus showed who the Father is with everything He did; at the end of His ministry Jesus said to His disciples:
If you had known Me, you would have known My Father also; from now on you know Him, and have seen Him. Phillip said to Him, “Lord show us the Father, and it is enough for us.” Jesus said to him, “have I been so long with you, and yet you have not come to know Me, Philip? He who has seen Me has seen the Father; how can you say, ‘Show us the Father’? (John 14:7-9).
Every time Jesus healed and delivered someone, every time He fed the multitudes and with every parable and teaching He gave; with everything that Jesus did He showed us the compassion and love of the Father. The Jewish mindset of the day was that God was Holy-creator, and very distant and deserving of reverent worship. Jesus revealed a new understanding of God as a loving and compassionate Father. It is because Jesus draws near to His Father that we have free access to the Father heart of God.
One of my favorite parables that Jesus tells about the Father heart of God is the prodigal son in Luke 15:11-24. My favorite part of this passage is when the son is on his way home with his prepared repentance speech; and even when he is a far way off the Father sees Him. This indicates that the Father was watching and waiting. This is just like our Father to be watching and waiting for the slightest turning toward Him. This story shows us that God delights in us while we are still recovering from our failure; He loves us even, in our immaturity. He does not require that we clean up and do right, but embraces and accepts us even in our weakness. When we mess up or get it wrong we can run into His arms. He has a plan for our life to be overcomers.
Amazingly our Father God not only wants relationship and loves us in our weakness, but He also loves us the same way He loves the uncreated perfect Son, Jesus. Jesus when He was praying to the Father just before He was betrayed and crucified: “And I have made Your name known to them, and will make it known, so that the love with which You loved Me may be in them, and I in them.” (John 17:26).
When Jesus lived on this earth during His 3 ½ years of ministry, He would often slip away to pray. The disciples saw this and asked Jesus how to pray. Jesus gave them the Lord ’s Prayer that started by addressing God in a personal way as a Father.
Jesus gives us permission to address His Father as our Father. Jesus showed us who the Father is, and He died to atone for our sins so that we could have a person relationship with His Father. Jesus is our doorway to intimacy and communion with the Father.
Imagine the uncreated Godhead in perfect communion, perfect love between each other since before the foundations of the world. They decide to create man in their image and invite man into the personal communion into that uncreated perfect love. Man turns away tries to be his own god. God sends Himself to earth to become man and then to die for man’s sins; all because He desires us, He wants relationship communion in Love for all eternity.
Father God is not anxious about anything, He sees the end from the beginning and is totally at peace; every moment of every day, we are invited through prayer, worship and contemplation into this perfect communion that the Godhead shares. “Be anxious for nothing, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God,” (Phil 4:6).
