My comments: Think about this from the prospective of an adoptive or foster father. A lot of this advice meets the needs of and addresses fears and problems of adoptive and foster children. Fears/problems include: insecurity that we will leave them or they will have to leave us, fear of an unsafe environment, only knowing conditional love or no love, being neglected/abused/abandonment, and not knowing a father as a leader.
Father Leadership extract
One of the main ways that God provides leadership in His kingdom is through fathers. This is why the spirit of Elijah must come and restore "the hearts of the fathers to the children, and the hearts of the children to their fathers." Otherwise the "great and dreadful Day of the Lord" which is coming would consume us and "strike the earth with a curse" (Mal. 4:4-6). These final words in the Old Testament point to God's Father Leadership in His kingdom.Fathering involves the loving heart attitude displayed in raising children.
A father exhorts and comforts and implores and sometimes chastens when necessary (1 Thess. 2:11, Heb. 12:7-11), but only after establishing you through much encouragement.
A father is always around through thick and thin.
A father does not forsake you when you fail or leave you when disagreements arise.
A father not only goes with you into battle, he leads the way (Joshua 1:5-9).
Spiritual fathering is the major leadership method for building the body of Christ.
One of my favorite authors Rick Joyner writes,
"Father" means "life giver." The father gives the seed, and the mother nurtures the seed.
In Scripture, we see the creation as "a" mother. Both Israel and the church are also referred to in Scripture as "mothers." Just as the woman was taken from Adam so that they would have to come together to be the complete image of God, the Lord will be joined perfectly to His bride to give the creation a true reflection of His glory."2
Since God calls his corporate body (males and females) both a bride (Rev. 21:9), and a son (Rom 4:5-7) we can see that gender is not the issue here. Being a spiritual father is not related to gender, and a woman can function as a spiritual father just as well as a man (Gal. 3:28).
The most important thing you could ever impart to someone is how to love God, and this does not come by teaching or someone praying for you or any other "quick fix" method.
It comes from being loved by a father.
It comes by hanging around someone on a consistent basis who has an intimate relationship with THE Abba Father. This is why until Jesus came, we never truly knew how to be intimate with God. Jesus started the Fathering mentorship by being a father to a small group of disciples and this little group became fathers who had sons who became fathers, and so on and so on. The fathering family of God began.
A father does not even choose his own children, but they are given to him by God, and a child does not get to choose their father either.
We do not agree on everything, and fathers can learn a lot from their children too, because it is a two way relationship.
No comments:
Post a Comment