As I spent three days in Toronto, Canada Father began to speak to me about the centrality of His love in His redemptive purposes on the earth. One of the speakers quoted Jack Winter who had asked a question after quoting "Jesus said to him, "I am the way, and the truth, and the life; no one comes to the Father but through Me." The question was simply this, where are we going? The eager students fired off answers: one said "to eternal life" and another said "to heaven". There wasn't any young people in the group who said the answer, to the Father. Jesus came to be the way for us to have a relationship with the Father but most of us have been taught to focus on Jesus (and He is very important as our Savior, Redeemer, and Lord) yet a relationship with the Father has been put on the sidelines or worse yet ignored all together. As again the deep longing in my heart was stirred, the cry for a Daddy. This longing was birthed after my father committed suicide when I was 6 years old, can my Heavenly Father be everything I have ever longed for in a father. Could it be that our Christianity is incomplete without a revelation of the Father's love? I like one author, James Jordan, had heard the message of "Jesus only". Jesus was to be the center of Christian life and experience, the Father was a mystery and seemed far off. Another speaker talked about the prophet and spirit of Elijah, who was the type for the coming of John the Baptist but also Jesus. The spirit of Elijah was, "Behold, I am going to send you Elijah the prophet before the coming of the great and terrible day of the LORD. He will restore the hearts of the fathers to their children and the hearts of the children to their fathers, so that I will not come and smite the land with a curse." (Malachi 4:5-6). This same theme is repeated in Luke 1:16-17 about the ministry of John the Baptist who was a forerunner to Jesus, "And he will turn many of the sons of Israel back to the Lord their God.It is he who will go as a forerunner before Him in the spirit and power of Elijah, TO TURN THE HEARTS OF THE FATHERS BACK TO THE CHILDREN, and the disobedient to the attitude of the righteous, so as to make ready a people prepared for the Lord." John Arnott then pointed out that we were saved into having an intimate relationship with the Father, not just getting saved from sin. I am so thankful for being saved from sin but the purpose of Jesus blood shed to forgive us of sin was so that we could be reconciled into a right relationship with the Father. Even if we look at the most quoted Scripture, John 3:16 "For God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him shall not perish, but have eternal life." The Father gave His only begotten Son, it was the Father's incredible love that was the reason behind the sacrifice. One well-known author, Derek Prince, said "This verse [speaking of John 14:6] speaks about a pathway and a destination. Jesus is the way, the Father is the destination." Then he goes on to say, "The problem with the church today is that we have become stuck on the way!" Augustine says further, "If the written word of the Bible could be changed into a single word and become one single voice- this voice more powerful than the roaring of the sea would cry out, 'The Father loves you!'" I believe part of the relegation of the Father's love to a place of lesser importance comes from a culture that is fatherless. According to the U.S. Census Bureau, 24 million children in America -- one out of three -- live in biological father-absent homes. Could it be that from our orphan hearts, we have created a functional theology that relegates the role of a loving father to being a distant but only hoped for reality. Yet the gospel's central theme is restoration of the most important relationship in all of life, our relationship with our Heavenly Father. As I was at the Conference my heart lept inside of me, this is the message that I was created to carry and live out. In Father's Love, Bret
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