No Fear in Love

The first emotion to be expressed after the Fall of man was expressed by Adam, "...I was afraid because I was naked; so I hid myself.” (Genesis 3:10)  The real question is where does fear come from, I want to propose that fear comes from separation from love.  Adam and Eve were separated from God through believing "the Lie" and eating of the tree of knowledge of good and evil.  Since God is love (1 John 4:8), then fear is simply the absence of love.  Fear is at the root of addictions, anger, broken relationships, often depression, anxieties, stress, striving, and many physical illnesses and diseases.  Adam boldly expressed an orphan heart for an orphan heart lives in fear because of the disconnection from love.  In 1 John 4:16 the apostle of love says, "We have come to know and have believed the love which God has for us. God is love, and the one who abides in love abides in God, and God abides in him."  So any place in our lives where we have fear and an orphan part of our heart is where there is an absence of love and the Presence of God.  Pastor Lee Eddy once said, that part of Christian Maturity is giving God access to every area of our lives.  This goes against the commonly held tradition that if you know more of the Bible that you are a more mature believer, rather than intimacy with Jesus really is the mark of maturity.  It is normal for any part of our heart that lives from the place of an orphan to have fear, thus we will have the fleshly living that is a fruit of fear in our lives.  It is easy to get frustrated with ourselves for not doing what we believe we ought to do as a follower of Christ, but often we will find a root of fear behind this resistance.  Does God expect an orphan heart to produce the fruit of a son?  No, any area where we live from an orphan heart will produce like fruit.  This fruit will be consistent with an orphan heart like selfishness, hiding, addictions, defensiveness, blaming, avoidance, or other forms of sin.  Jesus says in John 15:5 "I am the vine, you are the branches; he who abides in Me and I in him, he bears much fruit, for apart from Me you can do nothing"   Jesus reveals the Father's heart, which is that we would be continually connected to Him and then through this connection we will bear much fruit.  So could it be true that the Christian life is not me trying to produce fruit for God but simply continually being connected to the reality of His Presence, His voice, and His love.  I have been struck by the Holy Spirit that things that we point out as problems like, fear, anxiety, lies, confusion are all really the absence of God.  Fear is an absence of love, anxiety is an absence of peace, lies are the absence of truth, confusion is the absence of God's will, and there are many other aspects of God which we have common names for.  Adam and Eve had to develop language that describe their experience of separation from God because prior to the time of the Fall they only would have had perspectives connected to relationship with God.  So much of what we call "normal" in our world, such as dysfunctional families, depression, discouragement, teen rebellion, distant marriages, and anxiety are a picture without God's love and life flowing.

In Father's Love,
Bret

Unrelenting Love

Unrelenting according to Webster's Dictionary means, "not slowing down, stopping, or growing weaker."  The Father spoke to my heart and said that He wanted to, "pour His love into me."  We seek God for so many reasons, being in pain, needing a breakthrough, because we don't know what else to do, or we are just at the end of our rope.  God who is the most amazing Father and the very source of love itself who wants to saturate His beloved sons and daughters with His love till we are overflowing.  It seems selfish to seek God to be loved, yet this extravagant Father knows that being saturated with His love means love will come out of us onto others.  In 1 Corinthians 13 we see the very attributes of His love, patient, kind, does not insist on its own way, it is not irritable or resentful, and so many other qualities of His agape love in us.  In speaking with a person this week they felt bad for being in a place to rest and receive Father's love, we should be doing something for Him or doing something for someone else.  This person said it seems selfish.  Strange that in a very self-centered culture that is constantly snapping "selfies" we feel it is selfish to want God's love for us.  Out of all the disciples John was the only one that had a revelation of the love of God, so much so that He was called the "disciple that Jesus loved".  I bet the other disciples wanted to kick his butt at times for being so proud that He was the one Jesus loved, yet no where do we see Jesus correcting John.  It was said of John that he would always be the one leaning against Jesus chest while they dined, I wonder what the other disciples said in their committee meetings about their little band about John.  In 1 John 4 this same disciple says that "God is love", John knew this love intimately and up close with divinity in a human body for 3 years.  I don't believe John was saying that he was the only one Jesus loved, he just had a personal revelation of God's love for him through Jesus.  As Jesus was being crucified and all the others scattered who was the lone remaining disciple, John and Jesus mother Mary was also there.  I wander how the Body of Christ would be transformed to look like the Bride if we would let the Father lavish His love on us, being the object of His love simply because this is who He is.  The revelations that would come out of this place of intimacy, affection, and extravagant love would change the way we see life and the way we relate to others.  I believe so many of our issues, relationship problems, and even sicknesses are connected with deep down love deficits.  Yet we have been put in right relationship with the God who is an ocean of love, never ending love that will blow any paradigm of love that once had.  In Revelation 1 the same disciple John writes of powerful encounter he had with Jesus the returning King, in this encounter Jesus eyes were like fire.  This fire is the fire of His love, His jealousy for His bride, and His unending passion to be One with us.  Will you consent to being radically loved, with a love so powerful that this love sees every deficit as an opportunity, every lack as a place to be filled, every broken place as a way He can display His goodness, every sin as a place He can show off His grace through forgiveness, and every loss as being transformed into a place of beauty, redemption, and hope for others.  I am convinced that agape love gives, so being radically and abundantly loved will mean that this love will leak out on others (overflow).  Will you dare to be selfish, to be jealous for His love for you?  Can you imagine a Body  of believers who are so saturated with the love of God, that they would say of themselves "we are the disciples Jesus loves."

In Father's Love,
Bret

Unique New Creation

The Holy Spirit struck me with a verse I had read many times but the Word came alive, the phrase new creation.  This comes from 2 Corinthians 5:17 which says, "Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has passed away; behold, the new has come."  From this passage and the previous one we know that the old things have passed away but we have been made new creation's.  I believe God is hungering for us to come into the unique new creations that we are "in Christ", not attempting to be who we admire or diminish the ways that we are different from others.  New creations are creative because He is creative, God is seeking to birth a unique union of you and Christ such that the revelation of who God is through you has never been seen on the earth.  The world system seeks to conform us (Romans 12:2) to it's image, which if I believed the commercials and used all the products- I would be taking a ton of prescriptions, be overweight, always trying to fix my problems, needing to get a new car to be somebody, and fully wound up on caffeine daily.  Conforming to the world means being busy because that is what you are supposed to be, constantly trying to improve your image and look, suppressing any emotions that aren't happy or fine, working for money, and being totally in control of your life.  We are unique new creations in Him and we are in the process of being revealed through encounters with the Holy Spirit where we see who He uniquely is in our lives and we see who we are.  

Maybe I am the only person that admires others like Bill Johnson and Randy Clark, seeking to be like them (which is good) but missing out on the uniqueness of Christ in me.  I love learning about our identity "in Christ" and who the Word of God says we are but there is also a frustration inside when this becomes formulaic and misses the special way Christ is being revealed through a one in 7 billion person.  There is a deep hunger in my heart for the creativity that comes as God paints on the canvas of a life His grace, a personal redemption story that sings a sweet song to others of who are God is.  In the movement I am a part of, I love the prophetic bent where you can see people be awakened by words that tap into the unique God-given true self that is often hidden deep inside.  In Romans 8, it does not say the whole earth is groaning, we are groaning, and the Spirit is groaning for the revelation of the soldiers of God, or the slaves of God, or even the servants of God, the Word says for the revelation of the sons.  The truth is in a family each son or daughter is unique (even if they are "identical twins") with their own personality, quirks, dreams, gifts, talents, and desires.  Each child in a biological family carries the DNA of the parents but still the uniqueness is something you can't miss and the world in all it's attempts can match.  There are certainly things we share as human beings and as people of God, these are important and need to be highlighted.  Jesus often put two truths in tension (a paradox), yet others felt you had to have one or the others.  Jesus battled this dualistic thinking but presenting two opposite but completely compatible truths, such as be perfect and you are totally acceptable.  You are to be conformed in the image of Christ, yet you are a unique new creation that has an expression of God's nature that is special and cannot be copied by another.

A Unique New Creation,
Bret

Free to Face the Impossible

"You were born for the impossible!"  Bill Johnson.  When we were born again into the Kingdom of God, it is now deep in our DNA to look for the impossible and see it bow it's knee to Jesus Christ.  There is something about facing the impossible that removes our ability to live from an orphan heart successfully.  We must be connected to Jesus and the eternal realm before we can see happen what only God is capable of bringing about.  As I prayed for a woman that had a 2 inch mass in her ovary I immediately felt how truly small I was, yet His Spirit in me was saying that this mass must go.  Living from an orphan heart I would never have any expectation that a 2 inch mass should disappear from this person's body, who was I to expect such a miracle.  As a son of the Most High God, it would be normal for me to expect the impossible to bow it's knee to the power of the God of miracles and the Healer.  Since we are "in Christ" it is normal for us to see the works He did by the power of the Holy Spirit, happen through us by the power of the Holy Spirit.  When we face things in our world that are difficult or just take effort, it is very easy for us to rely on an orphan heart to be our power source.  Yet when we face the impossible we are immediately humbled, put in a place of dependency, and are small.  I believe this is why healings, miracles, and the impossibilities must be the life of every believer.  How are you going to strive and perform to see a 2 inch mass disappear?  This is why as crazy as it may sound, I love the hopeless situations that require that if there is not a big God then it won't change.  It is the mundane and normal things of life that suck me back into to depending on an orphan heart or religious ways to see it come about.  Could it be that miracles and healings are a place that we learn dependency, so that we can live from this place of continual communion with the Lord?

When I look at the giant that I face, "How to see leaders in the Body of Christ encounter the Father's love and be transformed into their true identity as sons and daughters" I am immediately under a huge weight when I live from an orphan heart.  As a little boy connected to the most wonderful and biggest Dad around, it is actually something that can happen.  The enemy seeks to work on by saying, "You don't know the Father's Love, how are you going to bring others into that reality.  You are the most unqualified person to lead this ministry, since your father died when you were 6."  There are elements of truth in these lies.  Yet I answered this call to bring Father's Love to leaders because I know that God loves to take the foolish things of the world (a fatherless man to bring the Father's love) to shame the wise.  I am a perfect target for His grace because I am desperate need (His power is made perfect in our weakness).  What impossibilities is God calling you to run straight at today, from a place of humble dependence?

It is in your DNA as a son or daughter of God to not only face the impossible but to see it bow it's knee to Jesus.  Will you like Gideon, Moses, Abraham, and the disciples go straight into the impossible storm believing only that God will overcome?

Into the Impossible,
Bret

Unconditional Acceptance the Foundation of a City

As I attended the Leaders Advance at Bethel I was struck by their realm of thinking, which was to see cities transformed and see the Kingdom of God spread.  Through Bethel Church they are actually having influence in the city, including taking over management of the city convention center and even prophesying to the mayor.  In the Denver Metro Area, a city of 3+ million, it seems like a Goliath to a medium church of 400+ people.  Yet God's strategy is very different than an earthly or worldly approach.  In one of my favorite passages, Isaiah 61:1-4, God outlines His strategy to bring the Messiah to demonstrate the Gospel by restoring and transforming broken people.  This includes bringing healing to those who are shattered in heart, those who are bound up like they are in a prison, those are captive and need freedom, and finally those who are in mourning.  In an amazing revelation verse 4 says that God is going to use these very people who have been transformed by the anointing that was on Jesus to build up ancient ruins and even repair ruined cities.  Now if I made up a plan to transform a city, it seems wise to get the most knowledgeable and skilled people to bring solutions to the deep problems that so many urban centers face in our day.  Yet God accepts the deeply broken people and in transforming them lays a foundation to see a city transformed.  I am not saying we don't need wise leaders, civil servants, and business people.  Somehow those who have experience the humility of great need seem more positioned to bring wise solutions to the deepest places of corporate need.
      From His Word, God has never been interested in following human wisdom for His ways even saying that His ways are higher than ours.  There is a grass roots movement that comes from those who have been in the trenches of human suffering and need, turned to God to find real solutions that actually transform lives.  Our world is sick of religion that has a form of godliness but devoid of power, the earth is groaning for real solutions that come from transformed people (sons of God).  The foundation of God's Kingdom is our unconditional acceptance "in Christ", without being built on Christ we will continually jockeying, perform, and strive to find our identity and value.  It is the Kingdom of God alone that values every person because they are made in the image of God and the ransom of Jesus was given to redeem them.
      Religion is built on the foundation of self-effort and what you have to do to please God.  If we cannot accept broken people, it may be that our foundation is built on self-effort.  I have heard those who have built their foundation on self-effort judge those who are homeless, unemployed, or trapped in addiction.  Still others seem to have pity on these poor souls but instead of bringing transforming solutions seem to enable them to stay trapped in their brokenness, poverty, or addictions.  This looks like unconditional acceptance, yet real unconditional acceptance seeks to restore people to the image of God that they were created in.  Pity must be replaced with compassion that moves us to bring the power of God and wisdom to transform people into the image of God that they were designed in.  There is such power in tapping into people's God-given design and prophetically calling them into fulfilling what has been weaved into them by their Maker.  It was spoken to Bill Johnson that God is looking to raise up a blueprint city that is transformed by the Kingdom of God, that then can be a domino that will bring other cities into this same place.  Another city besides Redding, California is seeing transformation, the city Aurora, Illinois seems an unlikely candidate since it was a crime ridden suburb of Chicagoland.  As a Vineyard Pastor, Robby Dawkins, shared how the power of God was coming the city through healing, deliverance, and transformed lives are having an impact on a city-wide basis.  To go from one of the highest crime rates to not having any murders in 2012 when the top gang members promised the "bloodiest year" on record.

Accepted in the Beloved,
Bret