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Learning To Be A Son – Chapter Six – The Orphan Heart

Book Reviews, , ,

CHAPTER SIX

The Orphan Heart

Another misconception that holds us back from enjoying the fullness of the Father’s love is “the orphan heart” which is the root of our slave mentality.

From the moment Adam and Eve declared independence, they became orphans; they lost their fellowship with the Father and were alienated from Him by fear. They became slaves at heart, not sons. The whole world is an “orphanage” of fatherless children. Adam’s sin was passed on to his descendants, leaving them slaves to the fear of punishment, and alone in the world to find their own way without a loving Father to provide, protect and guide them through life.

Many believers have the heart of an orphan. They have never understood that they have been restored to the Father as beloved sons and daughters. They are suspicious of God’s love and afraid of punishment. They still think that they must obey rules in order to stay in God’s good books.

Jack and Trisha Frost, (www.shilohplace.org), after they had made their own discovery of the damage of having an orphan heart, wrote an article entitled “From Slavery to Sonship” in which they presented a comparison between the heart of an orphan and the heart of a son. The heart of the issue is that true son has a name, a home and an inheritance whereas an orphan is nameless, homeless and has no inheritance; he focuses only on keeping the rules and lives in fear of punishment. A son lives in the security of his father’s love and acceptance, no matter what he does.

It was Jesus’ mission to reintroduce His people to the Father whom they did not know because He had been buried under a mound of rules and ritual. Jesus assured His disciples that He would not leave them as orphans (John 14:18). Just as He had lived in the full fellowship of the Father, so they too, through the Holy Spirit, would experience the Father’s presence and love which was the engine and energy of His life.

Our experience of our human fathers plays a vital role in the way we perceive God as our Father. We relate to God as our Father in the same way as we relate or related to our earthly fathers. We are either loved regardless of our performance, or we are judged and rejected if we do not live up to our fathers’ expectations or treated harshly by strict dicsiplinarians.

The way we perceive ourselves is based on the way our fathers treated us. If we were loved and accepted, we will be secure in God’s love. If we were judged and rejected, we will have an orphan heart – insecure and living in the fear of punishment. Our belief about the Father and His attitude towards us will be shaped by the attitude of our human fathers towards us and the way they treated us.

The clue to our belief about ourselves and our relationship with God is our emotions and the way we react to our everyday circumstances. If we feel “bad” about ourselves, it is in indication that we have an “orphan” heart. Anything that triggers bad feelings is a reminder of what was said or done to us in our formative years that influenced what we believe about ourselves and God.

How do we change the way we feel about ourselves that will reflect God’s love for us. Forgiveness is the first step, acknowledging and cancelling the debt our father owes us for treating us as anything less than a beloved son or daughter. This will free us from the hold that our human father’s failure has on us.

The second step is to identify the false beliefs we have about ourselves in the light of what God says about us in His word. When we come clean with God, acknowledging the lies that shape our self-awareness, He is able to speak the truth into those places where we judged ourselves and set us free from fear, guilt and shame and replace these emotions with His peace.

How do we know that we are true sons and daughters of God? Discipline! Hebrews 12 puts the hardships and trials we encounter in life in their correct perspective. They are neither attacks from the devil nor punishment from God. God has already punished Jesus for our sin and the sin of the whole world. God is treating us as sons. He permits hardships to test and strengthen our faith in and love for Him as our Father so that we may share His holiness.

When we keep looking at Jesus, He teaches us how to act and respond to adversity out of who we are as sons and not in reaction to those who mistreat us. By continually gazing at Jesus in His word, we are transformed from cringing slaves and insecure orphans into confident and trusting sons and daughters, allowing nothing to move us from our trust in Him because we are secure in His love.

Have you read my first book, Learning to be a Son – The Way to the Father’s Heart (Copyright © 2015, Partridge Publishing)? You’ll love it!

ISBN: Softcover – 978-1-4828-0512-3,                                                                              eBook 978-4828-0511-6

Available on www.amazon.com in paperback, e-book or kindle version or order directly from the publisher at www.partridgepublishing.com.

My second book, Learning to be a Disciple – The Way of the Master (Copyright © 2015, Partridge Publishing), companion volume to Learning to be a Son – The Way to the Father’s Heart, has been released in paperback and digital format on www.amazon.com.

To order your 0wn copy of either book, contact

Toll free – 0800 990 914 (South Africa)

orders.africa@partridgepublishing.com

www.partridgepublishing.com/africa  or

+44 20 314 3997 (outside South Africa)

ISBN: Hardcover – 978-1-4828-0891-9                                                                                     Softcover 978-1-4828-0890-2                                                                                                              eBook 978-1-4828-0889-6

Check out my Blog site – www.learningtobeason.wordpress.com

 

 

Shalom!

Bible Study, ,

SHALOM!

“On the evening of that first day of the week, when the disciples were together, with the doors locked for fear of the Jewish leaders, Jesus came and stood among them and said, ‘Peace be with you!’ After He said this, He showed them His hands and His side. The disciples were overjoyed when they saw the Lord.

“Again Jesus said, ‘Peace be with you! As the Father has sent me, I am sending you.’ And with that He breathed on them and said, ‘Receive the Holy Spirit. If you forgive anyone’s sins, their sins are forgiven; if you do not forgive them, they are not forgiven.'” John 20:19-23 NIV.

Such familiar words! But they conjure up all sorts of pictures in our imagination, and many questions too.

‘Shalom! Hello!’ The common Jewish greeting but now loaded with new meaning! This was much more than a “Hello! Nice to see you again,” greeting.

Can you imagine what that one little word meant to those eleven fear-filled men, cowering behind locked doors? Every footfall, every sound sent their hearts racing. ‘Have they found us? Have they come to arrest us? Are we to suffer the same fate as Jesus? What are we supposed to do now?”

Jesus did not announce His arrival with a knock on the door or a “May I come in?” He simply appeared, in their midst, just like that! As silent as an owl on the hunt, He came. One minute He was not there and the next He was, in the middle of the huddle of men whispering together in case their hiding place was discovered.

‘Shalom! Peace!’ was His greeting. Peace, the inner calm and confidence that secures the heart in the midst of turbulent circumstances. It was a wish, a prayer, a command, and a promise. He had taken on the adversary and won. He had returned from the grave to tell them that they were back on the road to wholeness. For them, a new life was just beginning.

He had not only won the victory over the devil; He had also set in motion the process of renewal that would come through the Holy Spirit’s presence in them. The Spirit of God who had been removed from the human race when Adam chose against God, and who had only sporadically visited His people since then, was coming back to fill the earth with His presence and to take up residence in the lives of everyone who received Jesus.

Imagine Jesus’ excitement and joy! He was able to tell them that a new era had begun, and they were to be part of the biggest scoop in history. He had played His part in setting it in motion. Now it was their turn to go, and wherever they went, to tell the story and to invite the wayward sons of God to return to the Father’s heart and the Father’s home.

There was one great obstacle to experiencing this new life — the guilt of sin. It was their task to declare to whoever would listen, that God had finally and effectively dealt with sin. No one need cower in the presence of a holy God, ever again. Sin had been atoned for, guilt removed and everyone who believed in Him could face God in the shalom of a new heart and a clean slate.

He had now entrusted them with the precious message of forgiveness. Unless they shared the good news, people would remain in their sin, their guilt, their shame and their fear of death and they would never know that God had forgiven them and that they were free to come home.

“Therefore, since we have been justified through faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ…” Romans 5:1 NIV.

Faith Is The Glue

Bible Study, , , ,

FAITH IS THE GLUE 

“Yet at the same time many even among the leaders believed in Him. But because of the Pharisees they would not openly acknowledge their faith for fear they would be put out of the synagogue, for they loved human praise more than the praise of God.

“Then Jesus cried out, ‘Whoever believes in me does not believe in me only, but in the one who sent me. The one who looks at me is seeing the one who sent me. I have come into the world as a light so that no one who believes in me should stay in darkness.'” John 12:42-46 NIV.

Secret believers! Held captive by fear!

This is the power of false religion. Because religion has its origin in the human mind, it needs humans to defend it and force to keep people from leaving when they know the truth; force, the only way humans know how to exercise power. Fear holds people in bondage and force protects their loyalty.

These religious leaders were bound by the fear of what their colleagues would do to them if they followed Jesus. Is it possible to believe but not to follow? Jesus said not. To follow Him means to take up the cross. Anyone who carried a cross was on the way to death. A disciple is one who has embraced his rabbi, his rabbi’s yoke, and everything his rabbi stands for. He is no longer his own person. He has died. These Jewish leaders, whom John said believed in Him, had not done that. They were afraid.

But fear and force cannot bind the conscience when it is convinced of the truth. How was it that the apostles and many thousands after them, were willing to lay down their lives rather than deny that Jesus is Lord? Did He threaten them with death if they refused to acknowledge Him? Did He destroy Peter for denying him with oaths and curses? What changed cowering men into courageous witnesses? The resurrection convinced them that He was the Son of God and not even death could scare them into submission to the Roman authorities or the bullying religious leaders.

But the reward for believing in Jesus far outweighs the cost! There is a revelation of the face of the Father in the face of Jesus that is reserved for those who recognize and embrace the truth that He and the Father are one.

Throughout the history of His people, Jesus had dealings with them in many different ways. He met Moses through the miracle of a desert bush that burned with an unearthly fire but was not consumed and revealed His name to him on the mountain. He revealed His glory in dreams and visions to His prophets, men like Isaiah and Ezekiel; He gave His personal protection to Daniel in the den of lions and his three colleagues in Nebuchadnezzar’s fire; He spoke in an audible voice to Abraham and Jacob and even wrestled with Jacob until he prevailed and became a prince with God.  But they never saw His face.

Now He was here on earth in person, in human form so that all men might see the face of God in Him; but only those who believed the truth of who He was would recognize in Him the nature of the Father He represented. To some He was a blasphemer; to others at best a prophet or just a good man. Only to those who believed in Him was He the face of the Father.

John lived and walked with Him for three and a half years. To him, Jesus was the Word become flesh…”We have seen His glory, the glory of the one and only Son, full of grace and truth.” John 1:14. Paul met Him on the Damascus road and, from then on He was, to him “the image of the invisible God, the firstborn over all creation.” Colossians 1:15. To the unknown writer to the Hebrews He was “the radiance of God’s glory and the exact representation of His being…” Hebrews 1:3.

How did Jesus respond to Philip’s request, ‘”Lord, show us the Father and that will be enough for us’? “Jesus answered, ‘Don’t you know me, Philip, even after I have been among you such a long time? Anyone who has seen me has seen the Father.'” John 14:8, 9.

The miracle is that Jesus is just Jesus, good man, prophet perhaps, until faith opens the eyes and the heart sees Him as the Son of God and a mirror image of the Father. This is the glue that binds us to Him. We are not held to loyalty by fear or threats of death. To believe in Him is to see Him and to see Him is to love Him. “There is no fear in love. But perfect love drives out fear, because fear has to do with punishment. The one who fears is not made perfect in love.” 1 John 4:18 NIV.

The Truth Hurts

Christian Life, , ,

THE TRUTH HURTS!

“One of the religion scholars spoke up, ‘Teacher, do you realise that in saying these things you’re insulting us?’

“He said, ‘Yes, and I can be even more explicit. You’re hopeless, you religion scholars! You load people down with rules and regulations, nearly breaking their backs, but never ever lifting a finger to help them.'” Luke 11:45, 46 (The Message).

Why is it so difficult for people to recognise what religion does to them? Religion is one of the most powerful deceiving spirits, together with mammon – the spirit that drives the lust for money – that operates on the earth.

God created man to live in union with Himself. God is free. Nothing drives Him. Nothing enslaves Him. Freedom is His great passion for us, but not the ‘freedom’ that the devil entices us into, the freedom to do as we please, because that freedom is the worst kind of slavery. It is slavery to our own selfish passions which clash with the selfish passions of others and cause the kind of chaos that governs the world today.

Real freedom is to do life God’s way so that we are not driven by the painful emotions that come from the cruel ways we treat ourselves and others. These religious leaders were a case in point. Why did they react to Jesus’ accusations? They were guilty and they knew it.

God created us to make choices but He also gave us a conscience which reacts to bad choices. Because we refuse to believe what God says, we keep making the wrong choices, serving ourselves instead of serving God and others. There is nothing that will make our feelings of guilt and shame go away when we have rejected God’s way and chosen our own, except God’s forgiveness.

These so-called spiritual leaders piled rules on their followers to have power over them. When we are insecure because of our own guilt, we like to control other people because it gives us a feeling of power. ‘Control freaks’, as we like to call them, are actually emotionally insecure people.

Emotional pain robs us of our true identity. Because of childhood experiences such as abandonment or rejection, which we turn inward and interpret as the result of our worthlessness, we feel inferior to everyone else and have to make up for it by using our ‘power’ to push other people around.

In this case it was done in the name of ‘religion’ which Jesus hated because it enslaved the ordinary people to fear, fear that breaking the rules will bring God’s wrath on us. This is a devilish lie to discredit God. He has already punished Jesus for every wrong choice we have ever made. He has taken away our guilt and opened the way for us to be reconciled to Him. He has no desire or need to punish us. He invites us to be His sons and daughters. Paul put it this way, “God was reconciling the world to Himself in Christ, not counting men’s sins against them.” 2 Corinthians 5:19a (NIV).

He has done away with the notion that any kind of rule-keeping appeases Him. He knows we can never be perfect on our own. He did it all for us so that we can be free from guilt to live in fellowship with Him.