This week we had the topic, Father Heart of God, which was presented by the leader of our base, David Stevenson. We got to take a little trip up to a place that is an hour away and is right on the ocean, Tahlee. It is an old Bible College and has been the place for a lot of ministry over the past decade and the owners of this are trying to give it over to YWAM, yet not leaving their staff stranded. This is a beautiful place to find God as you can join in with the simplest things that God has created. We dug into many areas of God as a Father, the perfect Father, and what that means as we continue to grow in our faith.
One of the main points was that we all are the children of God when we come before Him and accept Him into our hearts that means we don’t have to have it all together He wants us to be childlike. Childlike means that He wants us to totally be dependent and obedient upon His word and not care what the world thinks because our father knows best and has great plans for us to succeed. We need to have a fear of the Lord rather than a fear of man in judgment. This is great because the times when we are different are the best times for God to use us and speak to us. We fail to do this because we as humans are prideful and arrogant and we find humans don’t like authority and they don’t like to be servants. So we need to humble ourselves before God and live in humility as it strengthens our relationship with God and triggers our heart to love more as we are truly able to see Him as a Father.
Also forgiveness and obeying authority or loving your neighbor is a huge part of seeing God as the Father, the Ultimate Authority. We need to live our lives loving God and our neighbors and that means that no matter what happened we have to take responsibility for ourselves and our own actions. So by being humble and living in humility we are able to be convicted of our sin and repent and be righteous again. The injustices in our lives are horrible yet we are only hurting ourselves and our relationship with God by not honoring His word and really we can only control our own actions and He is the great healer and when we come before Him, He will help us heal those wounds. John 15:1-2 talks about how we are the vines and God is the gardener and that He cuts off all branches that bear no fruit and prunes the branches that bear so they will be more fruitful. This is like a perfect Father, protecting His son/daughter and protecting them from the bad stuff and trying to multiply the good things. Once you realize this we can then come back to our childlikeness and depend on God and not worry about the world temptations as God has made us whole and healed again.
God wants us to be the children of His kingdom through the process of supernatural adoptions and that we are a part of Gods family and we are called to love in adopted loves as anyone and everyone can be a part of Gods family. God has a heart for lost people as w can see through the story of Zachius and that when we are humble before Him we will get our pride and dignity. We also as His children become the children of favour as Jeremiah 3:19-20 states that if we commit to Him He wants to give us desired land and a great inheritance. God loves us and we are His children and through that He wants to use us.
So basically we need to come to God and be transparent and live our lives in humility because if we are prideful or arrogant then we can’t be used as we have lost the childlikeness and the favour of God. So after we learned how God wants us to b transparent and live in humility we got the opportunity to do ministry and confess our struggles and sin before the group as we all our children in Christ. This was a great chance for people to be open and broken within each other and God and through that b freed from the sins and condemnation that many have felt in the past. This gave many people like me a great chance to just take all the hurt and pain away and give it to God and be weak because that is when He is strong. This was a time that was very emotional for many of us as we confessed deep dark secrets, but now feel so free. Yes, this was a time where I cried like a little baby as I felt so open and out there yet so loved at the same time, quite an amazing feeling actually.
This helps many of us to know the others struggles and just become more of a close knit family of Christians living a life that see no judgment, which is what we are called to do as Christians and many of us fail to do that. We also had a time at the end where we got to apologize for the way we had treated certain people or a particular sex in the past, this was amazing as I failed many times to treat girls with the proper respect they deserve. Some others got a chance to hear words of affirmation as they suffered through insecurities and others got the chance to shout out what they know in their minds so they would be able to know it in their hearts, because what we know in our hearts is what will shine out. Then of course we were able to come before God and pray for one another and just pray for God to walk them through their struggles and insecurities and love them in Perfect Love that only the Perfect Father can do.
The greatest part of Tahlee was that it was so easy to find God and to hear Him speak to you and to reveal great things to you. On the first night there we were worshiping and in the woods because it was heaps hot with the sun beating down on us. At this time I was singing praises to the Lord and just totally giving all my love to God through praise when I felt totally alone for a second and then I felt the presence of the Holy Spirit as I had the feeling of arms wrapped around me from behind cuddling with me. I have had some recent struggles being away from home and just totally feeling weak at times because I am continually struggling with true forgiveness. This was the perfect time as then I was led to the boat shed, just outside the wooded area, and I was able to see the beautiful sun set as I felt the embrace of God through the Holy Spirit. This was perfect as God also gave me visions of the future and told me that I had to lead in being open in broken with the group as I did and it just made me truly understand that God has plans for me and that I have a purpose. Jeremiah 29:13 says you will seek me and find me when you seek me with all your heart. This verse is so true and in doing that God has revealed great things to me and I can’t wait to see what He may reveal to me in this next week.
Wow, how amazing is God right?
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