In our ministry we have used the term "orphan heart" and I am sure many wonder what this really means. I have used it also to describe my own journey in life because I must have been the biggest orphan on this planet. I will describe my own "orphan heart" because I know it all to well. At 6 years old when I got the news that my father committed suicide, I believe I had an almost outer body experience when I felt the depth of truly being alone in the world, no one to comfort me, and facing the uncertain future without a father. An "orphan heart" springs out of one who believes they are cut off from love and therefore are alone in the world and must use whatever resources they possess to make life work and survive. Since from the very beginning God created us from love, for love, and to love; being cut off from love means we are cut off from Him and life. In 1 John 4:7-8 the Holy Spirit says through John, "Beloved, let us love one another, for love is from God; and everyone who loves is born of God and knows God. The one who does not love does not know God, for God is love." John shares the revelation of God from one who reclined at the chest of Jesus and was known as the One Jesus loved, that God is love and to know Him is to know His love. The love of God is not just some doctrinal point to be considered, it our ultimate destination which is to know God and therefore encounter His love. A person with an "orphan heart" may have a concept of love but they are really not at home in love, thus they pursue the lower desire which is to hide. People with "orphan hearts" hide behind performance, image, veneer of "I'm fine", behind thick walls around their hearts, and behind counterfeit affections such as drugs, alcohol, or pornography. Other people with "orphan hearts" look to their ability to be successful at work, to their children to give them identity, perfectionism, or even a spouse. There is a great deficit in the "orphan heart" that seeks to fill this void with anything that will give significance, worth, love/acceptance, and identity. An "orphan heart" will even use religion if it will promise that I will get these needs met by doing good things for God, all the while hiding from true intimacy with God and others. You see intimacy requires that we be vulnerable or exposed, that the veils we have put over our heart to hide our inadequacies, failures, losses, pains, and insecurities be removed. Many people will pay lip service that 1 John 1 says, "God is light" but then often hide these areas of their heart and wonder why they are unable to draw close to God. Through Jesus Christ God has done everything to make Himself accessible to us, yet the issues of the heart are on our side but require the power of the Holy Spirit to reveal and take down. We must look to Jesus as our hope to overcome the barriers, veils, and ways that I hide from God. Jesus came as our human representative and conquered every barrier between us and God, sin, an old nature, the curse, iniquity, demonic inroads, broken dreams, and all sin's twisted effects on humanity. It is the Holy Spirit that reveals to us personally what Jesus has done on our behalf and transforms us into the image of Jesus. We have the choice to surrender, agree, and yield ourselves to His transforming work but we cannot accomplish it on our own. The Gospel is not a self-improvement program but an exchange. The exchange is an "orphan heart" for our royal identity as His eternal sons and daughters at home in the love of the Father. Father's love is His powerful desire for His children to be reunited in life-giving relationship with Him, that has spanned all of time to see us brought into the place He always longed for us to be. Jesus continually paints a picture of the relational heart of the Father, in Luke 15 the "Prodigal Son" we see a father that is continually searching the horizon for His son and when He sees him runs out to meet him even humiliating himself by lifting up his robe and running. I believe a revelation of the Father's unconditional love is what can radically change generations and ignite a fire that will burn across this nation and world for years and years to come. Yet the revelation of Father's love will cost us everything, especially what our "orphan hearts" have held so dear. For this love is an all-consuming love, a fire that will burn up any counterfeit affections, and a fire that will burn away all earthly identities that we have held onto. An invitation with your name on it has been issued from the very throne of God and He is calling, will you answer this all-consuming invitation and lay aside every other affection. In Father's Love,
I just recently heard another person talk about someone who was asking that Jesus take control of her. Is this really our goal in the Christian life that Jesus would control me? These people who say this are well-meaning and often have a sincere love for Jesus. We have a common deception in our society that we can control other people. One writer said this is the most common sickness in our society, believing we can control other people or should. Trying to control others leads to a lot of stress when we are confronted with the reality that others are free will human beings who can make choices we don't like. I am confronted with this when my son decides to finish his breakfast by licking the syrup off of his plate, he has a free will and he is powerful whether I like the choices he makes or not. I can threaten him about his syrup licking and imply some kind of punishment, at the core though this is an attempt to control him. As the Lord exposes worry and anxiety in my life, I realize that much of this worry and anxiety comes from taking responsibility for things I can't control or my feeling responsible for other people's choices that I definitely can't control. If I am going to be powerful as a person I must recognize that others are powerful and were made by God this way. A two year old is discovering that he is powerful and can make choices, attempting to stick the cat in the toilet is exercising his power till the cat exercises hers by scratching the little boy and escaping. It is the Enemy that seeks to put people in bondage and slavery, where the Bible says where the Spirit of the Lord is there is freedom (2 Corinthians 3:17). Could it be that our attempts to control others is actually part of the Enemy's strategy to lead others into bondage, rather than learning how to live with other free people who can make bad choices that affect us. If the goal of the Christian life is to be controlled by Jesus, than why did God put the tree of the knowledge of good and evil right in the middle of the garden of Eden next to the Tree of Life. We see that Moses was a type of Christ as a deliverer to the nation of Israel in bondage in Egypt. Throughout the Scripture we see this theme of God giving people freedom to make really bad choices, instead of controlling them so they can't. We often justify our control of others, that it is in the best interest or they need to be protected. There are certainly extreme situations that it is the best and most loving choice to step in but often at other times it is simply our fear of the other person making a bad choice. I have made my share of bad choices, these are probably the times I have learned the greatest life lessons and yet it was painful. It is interesting that the most common question Jesus asked people while He was on the earth was: What do you want? (or some form of it). Jesus is interested in their desire, not attempting to control them to get them to want what they are supposed to want (religion). Actually the root Latin word for religion (religio) means to bind. A religious spirit is actually dangerous to a vital relationship with Jesus because there is an exertion of control to get a person to choose the right or good choice. This is actually a derivative of the Tree of knowledge of good and evil, which depends on the resource of flesh rather that the Spirit of God living within a believer. In John 8:36 the Word says, "So if the Son makes you free, you will be free indeed." You are free "in Christ", Bret
Father recently showed me that I learned at an early age how to carry adult burdens and worries but now at 43 years old I have become overloaded. In the midst of my anxiety, worry, and fear I knew Father was at work but it seemed difficult to see. I sensed the Father pointing to the joy my kids had as I drove them to school over being able to hide their hands in their other sleeve. Such a simple thing yet they took such joy and they laughed about it. In my fleshly seriousness these seemed silly, yet their joy over something so simple is contagious. Could it be that they really have the freedom and I somehow lost this as I took on adult burdens as a child? Jesus says in Matthew 18:3-4 "And said, Truly I say to you, unless you repent (change, turn about) and become like little children [trusting, lowly, loving, forgiving], you can never enter the kingdom of heaven [at all]. Whoever will humble himself therefore and become like this little child [trusting, lowly, loving, forgiving] is greatest in the kingdom of heaven." In our self-sufficient, competitive, and independent society we do not value the dependence of children, we can't wait till they can get older and do things on their own. We are irritated with their silliness, their lack of focus, their distracted wander about the simplest things, their unending questions and curiosity, their unending needs, and their constant mistakes (from our view). I speak not only for the society but also from my own experience as a parent, yet they seem to have a greater understanding of the Kingdom of God than I do at times. Instead of me always seeking to teach them, I realize that I can learn from them. In these passages Jesus is not only inviting us to become childlike but says it is necessary to experience the Kingdom of God. It is no wander the serious and learned religious pharisees of the day took such offense at Jesus. What an in your face rebuke to have Jesus grab a couple of children and point to them as an object lesson for the Kingdom of God. I am sure these were not the special perfect children that only exist in very serious and image driven families, these were a couple of snot-nose, silly, and care-free children of a more agrarian society. Here is the context of Jesus teaching the disciples about the Kingdom of God by pointing to the children, Jesus was with Peter and they were going into the temple. When Peter is challenged by the collectors of the temple tax if his teacher pays the temple tax, Jesus presents a question to Peter about paying the temple tax. Jesus ends up saying as to not cause offense, go down to the sea cast in a hook and pull out the first fish and open it's mouth to get the shekel for the temple tax. It is as if the Father is laughing at their temple tax by the instructions He gives through Jesus to get it from a fish. This is outlandish, strange, and even childlike. A perfect lead in to teaching the disciples about the Kingdom of God through children. Then the challenge is to humble themselves and become like one of these little children. I find in my own life and many others that much of our pain and hardship is caused by trying to be strong, independent, knowledgeable, wise in our own eyes, and not appear foolish. We have orphan hearts and are trying to be strong rather than repent become like little children and admit how weak and needy we really are. Yet Jesus in His first public sermon begins with the Beatitudes, the first being "Blessed are the poor in spirit for their is the Kingdom of heaven." It is through humility which means being connected to our desperate need for Jesus and a loving Father that positions us to receive grace. In 1 Peter 5:5 we are told "For God sets Himself against the proud (the insolent, the overbearing, the disdainful, the presumptuous, the boastful)—[and He opposes, frustrates, and defeats them], but gives grace (favor, blessing) to the humble." I heard an evangelist, Leif Heitland, say "I am a little boy with a BIG Dad." How offensive to our independent, handle everything, self-sufficient world, yet how refreshing to go back to childlike trust. In Abba's Big Arms, Bret
