Monday, April 25, 2011

We have a Father

I write this mainly for my friends from Glasnost but anyone is welcomed to read it. I think that it is both relevant and important at this time. I took the text from a book called "The Healing Path: Overcoming The Wounds Of Slavery And Orphanhood" by Robin Pasley. Probably it will be followed up by few more texts from the same book.

"Orphanhood entered our lives in two ways in the Garden of Eden. No only was the enemy hoping to bring a physical and spiritual separation from the Father through Eve's sin of disobedience, but he also intended to plant the seeds of doubt about the character and nature of God into the mind of all human kind to come. When we ask, "does God have a place for me?", we unearth this doubt of God's character.

Think about it. We all struggle at one level or another to believe that God is really good to us and that he really approves of us, don't we? We also struggle to really believe we have a Father who loves us unconditionally - that is, regardless of our failures. If we have ever attended a church service we've probably heard that God loves us, and most of us would say we like the idea, but we still have trouble living like he loves us. This struggle can pursue us even after we have decided to follow Jesus and receive his love for us. Even as believers we still act as though we may have to go out and scratch and fight and kick our way to a place of accomplishment in order to be noticed and have any secure place in this world. This is the orphan spirit at work inside of us.

When we have not lived into the truth that we are loved and accepted unconditionally, we will reach out for other kinds of acceptance. This deep cry for a place in the world transforms itself into an external need to be received and embraced by others in order to feel like somebody. This need, when allowed to flourish in us, becomes what we call the "fear of man".

The fear of man is in contrast to the fear of the Lord. When we say "fear" we are not talking about terror, we are talking about respect. We respect the edge of a high building not because the edge of the building is terrifying, but because if we walk past the edge we will be terrified at the consequences. The fear of God is like this. We don't fear him because he is terrifying - in fact, we know him as pure Love - but we do fear him because of the consequences of living past the edge of his pleasure and approval".

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