Father's Love ~ The Father's Love Series ~

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To the remnant Christians who desires to live the passionate life of Christ
To those who really hear what the Lord is saying in these times

Walk in Christ’s kind of love. Love the church and love people - not some mealy-mouthed, worldly kind of love, but love as Jesus did. Give your lives for the good of others even if you look foolish doing it. God is with you and it is the way to absolute freedom.

Those who have set aside what most of the church and the world call important are labeled misfits of some sort. Walking and listening to the Lord as your priority in life is a road that few believers choose to take. Seeking after God’s anointing and choosing to move only when His presence is with you rarely enters the mind of most Christians. To some of you, however, it is the only gospel that makes sense. Your life is not your own and you know it.

Throughout the Word of God, you are in good company, even if you feel very much alone in some of today’s fellowships. Find good counsel - people who believe in your calling - and go for it, no matter what the cost. Listen to what Paul says in I Corinthians 4 from The Message Bible:

“It seems to me that God has put us who bear this message on a stage in a theater in which no one wants to buy a ticket. We’re something everyone stands around and stares at, like an accident in the street. We’re the Messiah’s misfits. You might be sure of yourselves, but we live in the midst of frailties and uncertainties. You might be well-thought-of by others, but we’re mostly kicked around. Much of the time we don’t have enough to eat, we wear patched and threadbare clothes, we get doors slammed in our faces, and we pick up odd jobs anywhere we can to eke out a living. When they call us names, we say, ‘God bless you.’ When they spread rumors about us, we put in a good word for them. We’re treated like garbage, potato peelings from the culture’s kitchen. And it’s not getting any better.

“I’m not writing all this as a neighborhood scold just to make you feel rotten. I’m writing as a father to you, my children. I love you and want you to grow up well, not spoiled. There are a lot of people around who can’t wait to tell you what you’ve done wrong, but there aren’t many fathers willing to take the time and effort to help you grow up. It was as Jesus helped me proclaim God’s Message to you that I became your father. I’m not, you know, asking you to do anything I’m not already doing myself.”

As far as some members of the church of that day were concerned, Paul’s life was a failure. He was in prison; how could that be God’s hand? The fact is, however, that he was in the very center of God’s will. Most felt that he had not really heard from God for his directions, but he had. They could only see his life with their reasoning minds, not from God’s perspective.

If you are following hard after God, you will feel the sting of people who have not heard the heralding call to holiness. Your life will make little sense, especially to those in leadership who have been chosen for their business aplomb rather than their spiritual “selling out.” Be encouraged! You are a forerunner, and called as a scout to mark the path of “freedom in Christ” when the world - and most of the church - will walk around wide-eyed, drooling at the mouth from fear as times change. Good business sense will be a pale companion when lives will depend on counsel from the heart of God to make it through perilous times.

If your heart breaks when you see people falling back into the world because they have fallen through the cracks in some congregation when no one was there for them in their need, you are in the company of Jesus Himself. If you see the foolishness of pastors needing to become “cheerleaders” to motivate their people to good works, and good words from the pulpit never reaching the “inner being” of the people in the pews so that real heart change is evident, then God is showing you a church that has chosen to try to maintain status quo when He is calling for more. Because you see the heralding and are responding by repenting of your lack of love for God’s ways, you are in training to care as He does. Until the church in general catches up with His heart, you will be branded as somewhat unusual. Get used to it. The anointing of God to deeply impact lives and hold them for as long as needed never came cheap; in these times it will cost you everything.

Forgive those who would attempt to stop your calling, pray for God’s mercy toward them; and by all means, continue to minister. Don’t attempt to change those who don’t yet see God’s season or those who choose to remain cold. Find a fellowship that is moving in God’s direction and become involved, even if you have to change locations. Time is too short and the harvest is too ready. It is important that you do not become involved in religious games.

God was motivating Jeremiah to sell out and learn His kind of strength for the race he was to run when he was told: “If you have raced with men on foot and they have tired you out, then how can you compete with horses? And if [you take to flight] in a land of peace where you feel secure, then what will you do [when you tread the tangled maze of jungle haunted by lions] in the swelling and flooding of the Jordan?” Jer. 12:5 Amp

The “race” that our Lord is calling for in preparation for what lies ahead is a non-compromising, your-life-is-not-your- own, everything for Jesus kind of commitment. That’s the way it was for Jesus Himself. That’s the way it was for the first century church. That’s the call now - to walk a passionate, Christ-like life. It is the crucified life.

The embracing of a crucified life has always been God’s way for His true believers to find and move in accordance with His heart. He is calling things back to that standard. Be encouraged if you are responding. Do not let anyone put out the fire of that kind of love, no matter how reasonable the words sound or how foolish you may feel. You are not alone even though it may seem like it. Make sure that you are heading toward loving as Jesus did and submit to the training. Embrace all of the challenges you are going through for the love of your Lord and for the good of others who will need you. You are learning to “compete with the horses” and in training for what lies ahead on God’s timetable.

Visit www.awhitestone.com, for additional tools to be able to live Christ’s passionate life in your world.

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