| The greatest need for man is to know who he is in Christ and how God looks upon him. For far to long the church has asked, “Is God able?” And “will He?” It is time for creation to proclaim in word and demonstration that He has! The awareness of sin in the believer has caused an improper and erroneous concept of God. OUR PERCEPTION OF GOD DETERMINES OUR RESPONSE TO HIM. If we think God is sending tests and trials, sickness and disease to us in an attempt to cause of to love Him more then we will approach Him in fear and dread and we will never be able to approach Him in true love and worship. Christianity is not a religion, but a demonstration of a relationship between Father and son. It is not just having our sins forgiven nor just joining a church, but being a son to God and a servant to man and an overseer of His creation. True Christianity is being made a New Creation in Christ and walking and living daily on this earth as a son of God. Man has a need to know how God feels about him and he has an intense desire to be accepted by God. Man wants to know: • Is God angry with me? • Is He ashamed of me? • Is He willing to get involved in my life now? As parents, we desire the best for our children and we will do everything within our ability to make sure they get it whether it is buying a toy they have asked for or preventing them from being harmed, or caring for them when they are sick. Contrarily, in man’s attempt to know God, he has removed this caring and compassionate force from God making Him to be an untouchable and uncaring entity who just lets us struggle in this life making it the best way we can because we know it will all be better “in the sweet by and by” or when we get “over there”. It seems we as “Christians” have made it difficult for others to know God because we tell them “yes, God is there but let me tell you one thing—you must walk a fine line and you cannot mess up or you will go straight to hell. God so hates sin and He can’t even be in the presence of sin so you have to straighten up before He will even hear your prayer.” Why is it acceptable to admit and believe as truth that it is God who makes us sick to increase our faith, or that he takes our life, or that it is God who sends us to hell simply because that is what religion has taught us in presenting the character of God? God does not throw us away because of our sin, failures, and fears but He has compassion on us and redeems us from them. He did not forsake man and leave him in death but He Himself entered death and pulled all men from its hold effectively delivering all men from the effects of sin. God is not affected by our sin—by our missing the mark for it is His holiness that swallows up our failures perfecting us into His full likeness. If our sins and failures halt God’s action in our lives then we have a weak God who cannot be the Savior of the World as Scripture declares. We want to know without any doubt that our God cares for us and that He actively cares for us now while our heart beats. We want to know if He is angry with us for something we did today, yesterday, last week, or even last year. We want to know if He has the same feelings and concerns for us that we have for our children as an earthly father. Does Father God care about us with the same love that we have for our children? Could we even hope, is it possible, that He cares about us in a greater and more perfect way than we do even for our own children? How does God discipline us as His children? Some may believe that He sends adversity whether it is a sickness, or a trial, or even death to teach us to love Him more. Yet if we, as parents, utilized these methods which we ascribe to God in teaching our children we would be guilty of child abuse. But we attribute pain and suffering to God as a means of teaching us faith because we have been told that it will cause us to love Him more. Some ministers proclaim from the pulpit that God will place us on our backs in the hospital to get us to pray more or He takes the life of a young man in a vehicle accident to spare him a more gruesome death later in life. A God who is supposed to love me and to have sent His Son to die for me but was the One who took my child would not cause me to love Him but would cause me to run from a monster like that. We wonder why people do not want this God that is presented in the church. Why would not the mother whose child has just died want this god who “took her son because this god needed another angel” and yet we wonder why the churches are not full. Those who say they can love a god like this do not love out of their heart but out of fear of retribution. They try to love him because it is ‘the religious thing to do’ and all the time they are afraid he will strike them down any minute in death or by disease. The reason churches are vacant is because of the God that is presented and told they must love to escape hell. God does not punish us with test and trials; He disciplines us with His Word. He does not bring death and destruction to us but removes it far from us. What will really get man’s attention about God? Hell fire preaching hasn’t drawn men to God and saved the world. Most people read the Bible to prove what is taught in their doctrine and tradition instead of reading and studying it to see what it really says. The pulpit tells its hearers they are full of sin and God cannot stand to look at them but the God of the Bible says He does not impute sin and does not judge man. Romans 2:4 says it is the goodness of God that leads man to repentance—a changing of the mind—seeing that He really is a good God and He does love His creation and He has redeemed all back to Himself. The ways we feel about our children is a human representation of the way God feels about us as we are modeled after His image and not He after ours. Earthly men did not originate love and compassion for their children but love and compassion came from God and He placed those feelings in His pinnacle of creation, man. So, our feelings of love and protection for our children came from God who is the Father of All (Ephesians 4:6). These truths of a perfect love from a perfect Father are throughout scripture but religion has veiled them and made our God a barbaric, unfeeling, and uncaring entity that must use pain and torment to get the attention of His children. This is not the Heavenly Father the apostle Paul was talking about when he said that the “goodness of God leads to repentance” (Romans 2:4). This surely can’t be the same God who freely gives us all things, and all the things He gives are good and not evil (Romans 8:32; I Corinthians 2:9). He has given us all things that pertain to life and godliness according to II Peter 1:3-4. How do these things come and how are they revealed and applied to us? Truth has never originated with man but all truth is given and revealed by God. His Word reveals truth of a God who chooses man for fellowship. The Two-Letter Word In Matthew 7:7-11 there is an important two-letter word. Many have read this passage thinking it discussed two ideas but upon noticing this two-letter word, these passages are so connected. It does not divide the thought but continues it with a deeper level of clearness. Read the passage below paying special attention to the transition from verses 7 and 8 to verses 9 through 11.Matthew 7:7-11 (NKJV) 7 Ask, and it will be given to you; seek, and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you. 8 For everyone who asks receives, and he who seeks finds, and to him who knocks it will be opened. 9 Or what man is there among you who, if his son asks for bread, will give him a stone? 10 Or if he asks for a fish, will he give him a serpent? 11 If you then, being evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father who is in heaven give good things to those who ask Him! The word “or” at the beginning of verse 9 links verses 7-8 with 9-11. Then Jesus says in verse 11, “how much more shall your Father which is in heaven give good things to them that ask him” indicating God is going to do exceeding abundantly above our methods, above what we can do in providing for our children. In verses 7 and 8, Jesus says that everything we ask and seek for will be made available to us. He then begins to discuss a man who, even though he is evil, will not give something harmful to his son. Jesus then says “how much more will your Father who is in heaven give good things to those who ask him?” Jesus is telling us that it is more “natural” for God to give good things to His children than for man to do it. The idea of a father providing for his children began with the Creator of all things. It is God who first demonstrated the heart of a Father and His provision for those under His care. The little two-letter word “or” at the beginning of verse 9 makes verses 7 and 8 comparable to verse 9, 10, and 11; but verses 9-11 add something that was not found in verses 7 and 8. Jesus added the concept of relationship increasing the clarity and intensity of the previous verses. This portion of scripture is all in the context of Father God giving good things to His children—to those under His care in light of man doing it also. Verses 7 and 8 do not tell us why we get the things but verses 9 through 11 does. The reason we get what we ask for and seek for is because of the relationship we have with the One who supplies them. This portion of scripture is a perfect picture of “Our Father who art in heaven...” Man’s consciousness (awareness) of sin has caused an improper concept of God, shielding the heart of Father God from man. When guilt has a child in its grasp over a wrong the child has committed, it will cause the child to avoid the parent out of fear when the parent is the very one who can remove those feelings of guilt, fear and shame. This is the same concept that is held about God. Recall the circus mirrors found on the midway, when you stood in front of them how they changed your shape, height, or size. They did not reflect the real you but gave a false reflection. When we look and read the Word of God, which is a mirror of us (James 1:22-25), but because of sin consciousness, we do not see a properly reflected image of God or who the Word of God says or reflects us to be. We do not see our Father God properly nor do we correctly see who we are because in many instances we have let religion define spiritual things rather than God and His Word. Our concept of sin destroys our peace with God causing us to approach Him with fear in our hearts. It is similar with our children. When we correct our children they are still our children but fellowship is disrupted because the child feels guilt, anger, and shame. But when the child finally crawls up in our lap and says “I love you” neither the child nor the father remembers the problem! When we lose our comfort and security we “feel” guilty and not completely forgiven before Him. Sin consciousness has distorted the image of how we see ourselves and how we see God by using fear, shame, guilt, and self-condemnation. These products of sin consciousness cause us to view ourselves as unclean and unworthy and unable to approach Him and it makes us view Him as to holy to be bothered with our problems. Hebrews chapter 10 details how the repeated sacrifices under the Old Covenant could not make the one for whom they were sacrificed perfect (Hebrews 10:1-4). But the sacrifice of the Son of God as the Lamb of the New Covenant did make the worshipper perfect, clearing the slate by remitting sin not just covering it. Our sins and failures are not just hidden from God they are removed as if they never existed. They never were committed. The Blood of Jesus did and will make those who now worship God through the veil of His sacrifice perfected forever according to Hebrews 10:11-14. We have adopted a misrepresentation of God and His redemptive work because of fear, shame, guilt, and self-condemnation, which are born out of our sin consciousness or our own awareness of sin. Because of our focus on sin and our attempts to cleanse ourselves to make us “feel” better we miss seeing Him and His provision of unconditional love that has yielded forgiveness and acceptance. As long as the body of Christ believes the distorted picture of our Heavenly Father, making Him to be an angry untouchable entity that we can’t possibly know; then the Church can never mature but will be forced to live a fearful, frustrated, faithless life all the while missing out on the relationship of a lifetime. by Mike Clegg |
FEARLESS FELLOWSHIP WITH OUR FATHER
OUR FATHER'S HEART
 | |  | |  | |  |
 | |  | |  |