Being the Beloved

When the Holy Spirit puts His finger on an area of your life, this is where your next upgrade in identity is about to come.  The Holy Spirit was putting His finger in my life on the areas of rejection in my heart, where lies held onto this place of being wounded.  If you were wounded in the past by people, it is not the wounding that keeps you stuck but the lie about your identity.  One of the Holy Spirit's roles is to lead us into all the truth of who Christ is for us and who we are in Him.

Holy Spirit began to speak to me about being a Beloved son, especially with all the rejection I have experienced (lies I have believed) this collides directly with what I have believed.  The Father said of His Son Jesus at His baptism, "... this is My Beloved Son in whom I am well-pleased."  We have no problem believing the Father said this over Jesus Christ and even announced at His transfiguration "...this is My Beloved Son whom I am well-pleased, listen to Him."  You and I have been placed "in Christ" which means that Jesus bore all your rejection and it's results on the cross, that you would be the Beloved.  One of the definitions of Beloved means "worthy of love".  This is why Paul announces in Ephesians 1 that "you are accepted in the Beloved" and John says in 1 John 3 "Beloved, now we are children of God..."

Being placed "in Christ" as a son or daughter means that we are in a place to receive the Father's love, kindness, provision, acceptance, blessing, and favor (just to mention a few).  You share in the affection, love, favor, and blessing of the Father towards His Son Jesus, you have been perfectly positioned in this relationship.  It is one reality to be loved by the Father on daily moment by moment basis and quite another to be the Beloved of God.  Being the Beloved is an identity and cannot be changed, this is an eternal promise of God that is being lived out and fulfilled.

It is living double-minded to walk in rejection and be a Beloved son or daughter.  This is why even now the Holy Spirit is tearing down the strongholds of rejection, unworthiness, and worthlessness in your life.  He is crashing in with a revelation of Father's love over you as the Beloved, where you will always live in this place of His affection and kindness.  No rejection from earth is able to withstand the onslaught of this heavenly love that destroys the roots of rejection and worthlessness.

A Beloved son,
Bret

Why Everything has Changed: In Christ

Over 87 times the phrase "in Christ" appears throughout the New Testament.  I am glad that in recent years the Body of Christ has shown interest in the reality of being "in Christ".  What has once been words on a page (doctrinal position), the Holy Spirit is now makng a doorway into a whole new realm of living, being, and destiny.  The alternative to being "in Christ" is being "in Adam" which means that we are bound by this natural world with all of it's limits, rules, and laws.  The patriarchs of the faith would have understood the concept of being "in" meaning that your whole identity, family, and sense of destiny were connected to being "in".  If you are "in Adam" that means everything that is in the line of Adam comes down to you through your father and mother.  This includes sin, generational curses, propensities towards certain destructive sinful patterns, along with all the distortions in these families,the twisted original image of man (created in God's image), and finally death.  As I say these concepts each of us has personal experience with these realities in our life, the struggles with certain sin patterns and the disappointments that have been passed down through the generations.

In our Father's great love He needed to rescue us from more than our choices and actions, He needed to rescue us from the family that had been tainted and twisted by sin.  Father needed to put us in a new family without the continual influence of sin.  The plan of the Trinity in the beginning before the foundation of the earth was to bring us into the family of God.  God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit are in a never ending relationship of honor, love, joy, eternal life, and intimacy.  Into this beautiful and magnificent family the Father decides to bring us in but the only way is when we are released from our old family that is bringing death.  I believe deep in the heart of the Trinity is when the plan to rescue all of humanity and bring us home to the heart of the Father as sons and daughters was conceived.  This would require a human, perfectly sinless under the Law who could be the fulfillment of the covenant.  Every other human representative in the covenant, Adam, Noah, David, and Moses could not completely fulfill their part of the covenant.  So a New Covenant was designed which would be between God the Father and God the Son as the human representative with the Holy Spirit given the role of revealing the covenant to those brought in.  This covenant does not depend on our performance, ability, or effort.

Through being "in Christ" I am brought into the beautiful dance of the Trinity in all their joy, intimacy, power, honor, and love.  Being "in Christ" means that I live as a son sharing in the affection of the Father toward the Son.  All reasons to not receive the unconditional love of the Father died with Christ on the cross.  Every negative, sin, all shame, guilt, lie or distortion, and inadequacy was summarily crucified with Jesus and the new man that came forth eternally united to Christ is learning to shine in greater measure.  Scripture says we are being transformed from "glory to glory" as we look in the face of Jesus, seeing all that He is for us and in us.  We are New Creations learning how to live out our union with Christ in everyday life.  Seeing everything from the perspective of being seated "in Christ" in heavenly places (Ephesians 2:6) means that everyone and everything is different from this new realm above.

Seeing the reality of being "in Christ",
Bret

First Love

Most of us have experienced the sheer exhilaration and seeming free fall into "first love" and can remember the young lady or young man.  Some of these "first loves" began a wonderful relationship of love while others seem to be like a rocket that failed to fully launch.

God had a very different idea when He placed us "in Christ" and in "first love".  The Father loves the Son and loved Him before we were ever created.  It is into this boundless and unlimited love which the Father planned for us to be placed in.  I have heard our position "in Christ" taught more like a text book, rather than being invited into this place of extravagant love, relationship, and fellowship between Father and Son.

In 1 Corinthians 1:30 we are told, "But by His doing you are in Christ Jesus, who became to us wisdom from God, and righteousness, and sanctification, and redemption."  I remember having an encounter with God while worshipping in Toronto.  The Father asked me the question, "If I did not like you, why would I want to spend eternity with you?"  This question came after I began to understand that from start to finish the Gospel was about relationship.  A lovesick Father had lost his children through deception and sin, He would then do whatever it took to get them back.

Amazingly what Father and Son share in their relationship, we are invited into this place of intimacy, love, and fellowship.  According to John 17:24 we share in the mutual affection between the Father and Son.  It is in the experience of this place of affection that rejection, love deficits, and unmet needs lose their grip on our hearts and we become free.  We all dream of our deepest needs for unconditional love, security/safety, purpose, and value being met.  There are no dreams that these are not included.

There are many men and women, who like little boys and girls inside, long to hear the words spoken by the Father over Jesus "This is My Beloved Son in Whom I am well pleased."  Due to shame, love deficits, fears, guilt over past failures, their judgment of their poor performance, or feelings of unworthiness we think those words couldn't possibly be for me but only for Jesus the perfect Son of God.  Yet we have been placed "in Christ" as sons and daughters of God and these are His words over you.  Jesus Christ paid the ultimate price with His life to completely redeem you and bring you home to the Father.

A beloved son,
Bret

Papa's Promise...He Will Not Leave Us As Orphans

In our outreach ministry the core value has been intimacy with the Father from day one. I've preached it, advocated it, ministered inner healing for it with our ministry members. I've even stepped out in faith and imparted it ..... to the degree that I was walking in His love, I deeply wanted it to come alive in others.  Instinctively, I knew in my deepest knowing that this revelation was key to Kingdom living at the level Papa desires for all His kids, and to a great degree, a necessity for what we are going to face in the near future.

I'd given my l life to Christ back in 1971 during the Jesus movement days, 44 years ago, and spent until 2005 kicking, clawing and scratching and now and then giving up totally on finding approval and validation as a Christian. I never realized that what I was longing for was sonship...an intimate, sealed and forever irrevocable relationship with my Father in Heaven.

For me, being a Christian was about belonging to a group during those decades.....and who of us has not been lost and alone in a crowd. Don't get me wrong, that membership is absolutely vital, and
increasingly more important as time winds down towards fulfillment of all things (Heb 10:25). But I (and all of us need ) needed more.

One day while driving home from work I had to pull over quickly. I had suddenly realized that the Lord had seated Himself in the seat next to me. Not visibly, but in every other imaginable tangible way. I couldn't get into a parking lot quick enough, His Presence so heavy and overwhelming.  And then He spoke to me 12 simple words that have changed my life forever.

"Jim, I did use you. Will you let me use you again?"  You see, I had believed a lie for years. I had believed that He had "used" (abused) me to bless others-- - set others free, while leaving me an orphan, hurting and lonely.

Now you would think those words would sting and validate the lie I had believed. But no! There was so much love and acceptance and validation in that invitation that I instantly knew I was a son. I didn't have verbiage or scripture for it at that time, but I knew that I knew that I knew. You see, for me, I needed it presented that way. I'd grown up longing for the connection that a son finds while working next to his father; doing the things he did, with joy, laughter; conquering together the things men conquer. But instead, I got disapproval and ridicule because I wasn't good enough, quick enough, precise enough. My father had an orphan spirit (I'll share his story in another blog!!), and that's all he could give to me at that time.

In 12 words Papa unlocked my heart into Heaven's assignments, Heaven's power and joy; the joy of hand in hand conquering of kingdoms opposed to His reign of goodness and mercy!  The key to my heart was very lovingly and thoughtfully made; just for me.  He touched my emptiness with His Father's heart, knowing exactly what I'd respond to.

Is there one master key for experiencing intimacy with the Father? I'd have to say "No. But there is a Master Blank Key from which He cuts the custom key for each of us. It's shaped like a Cross with a heart on the end and it's cut from the very flesh of His own Son." Oh what amazing love, that we might not just be called sons, but by His predestined plan actually become sons. Rom 8:19,29.

In Father's Love,
Jim Hepting