He is quite
different from the picture we were taught in our Sunday Schools:
- He is committed to and delights in loving-kindness. This means
that He is kind with a loving heart. If we look at man, we see a
reflection of his Maker. This means that if we take all the bad things
away from man, we will be able to see what God is like. This is why the
Father is impressed when we do acts of kindness to one another. This
has nothing to do with good works in order to obtain favour from Him
(called dead works),
it has to do with being kind to our fellow human beings so that they
can give the glory to our Father.
- He is also committed to and is delighted in justice. He will not
allow injustice without reacting on it. Sometimes He takes longer that
we would like, and sometimes He acts faster than we thought He should
have, but He will react. The Jews were given the land of Canaan. What
about the people who lived there? The Bible states that they had more
than 400 years to repent before the Father decided to give this land
to the Jews!
- He is also committed to and is delighted in righteousness. This is
why He absolutely detests leaders being unfair, and He will react. I
have seen pastors with great ministries being taken out because they
reacted like unscrupulous earthly leaders. It look longer than I
thought it would, but it did happen. Not even the anointing of the
Lord will protect them against Jehovah if their time is up, can you
think what will happen to earthly leaders who does not have this
anointing?
He calls Himself Jehovah. He is the one:
- That decided when the end date will be, i.e. when Jesus will come again
- Had the power to pass the cup and not let Jesus drink from it
- Who told Jesus what to do, and Jesus did nothing without seeing
His Father do it first
- Sent Jesus to die for our sins
- Sent us the Holy Spirit
Jer. 3:19 I Myself said: "How gladly would I like to treat you like sons and
give you a desirable land, the most beautiful inheritance of any nation. I
thought you would call Me Father, and not turn away from following Me".
Who is God the Father? Some churches say: "We believe in God the
Father, the Creator of heaven and earth", but who is He really? We will
look at Him from three angles:
The Father, Yehovah, identifies Himself:
- The Almighty God - El Shadday
- The Self Existent One - Yehovah
- Our Healer - Yehovah Rapha'
- He is the One that makes us Clean
- Yehovah Qadash
- Supreme God - Yehovah 'Elohiym
- The Lord who makes you free
- Yehovah Yasha
GEN 17:1 And when Abram was
ninety years old and nine, the LORD appeared to Abram, and said unto
him, I am the Almighty God; walk before me, and be thou perfect.
Why did the Father introduce Himself in this way to Abraham?
Normally we would find it quite boastful if somebody came to us and
said: "Hi, I am Johan Maartens, and I am able to provide you anything
that you need". It was because the Father wanted to explain to Abram
that it was not just anybody who was talking to him, but somebody who
could enforce what He was about to promise.
We see it clearer in the discussion that follows:
"I will make a covenant between you and Me. Because of who I am,
this covenant will be unbreakable. You will become a Father of many
nations, I will be a God for you and all your seed - and you will have
a huge family"!
He then goes further to remind Moses of who He is and that He is able
to fulfil His promises to man by saying that He is the God of Abraham,
Isaac and Jacob:
EXO 3:6 Moreover he said, I am the God of thy father, the God of
Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob. And Moses hid his face;
for he was
afraid to look upon God.
ISA 42:8 I am the LORD: that is my name: and my glory will I not give
to
another, neither my praise to graven images.
Lord = Yehovah = The Self Existent One
The Father also repeats this in Exodus 6:6
EXO 6:6 Wherefore say unto the children of Israel, I am the LORD, and
I will
bring you out from under the burdens of the Egyptians, and I will rid
you
out of their bondage, and I will redeem you with a stretched out arm,
and
with great judgments:
He is self existent. This means that He does not have any needs and
survives without any outside help. There is absolutely nothing that He
requires in order to live, neither does He need help from anybody to
fulfil the promises He makes to man. As a matter of fact, even if people
could help Him, He would not make use of it, as He is not prepared to
share His glory with anybody else.
Now what does all our efforts mean? Absolutely nothing! This is why
He is not looking for our help, our actions or our support. He is
looking for our love, that we bear much fruit and that we love one
another as He loved us.
EXO 15:26 And said, If thou wilt diligently hearken to the voice of
the LORD
thy God, and wilt do that which is right in his sight, and wilt give ear
to
his commandments, and keep all his statutes, I will put none of these
diseases upon thee, which I have brought upon the Egyptians: for I am
the
LORD that healeth thee.
rapha'
to mend (by stitching); fig. to cure, physician, repair, make whole
thoroughly.
When we say to our children: "Do not play in the street, I will run
over you with the car", it does not mean that we will wait until our
child plays in the street, then we will rush to our car and run over him
ore her. It means that this could happen if they play in the
street. Just the same He told them to listen to what He has to say and
obey that, otherwise sickness and disease will come over us. But if we
obey, He will make sure that these things do not come over us, because
He is the Lord our Healer. We heals us physically, spiritually, mentally
and in any other way required in order to ensure that we are made whole
thoroughly.
God healed me from three deadly blood cancers.
It did not happen overnight. There were three months of deadly battle
where the cancer attacked my body while I was building up the faith to
receive my healing from God. I was fortunate - I already knew the truth.
Other people are not so lucky and do not know that they may be healed by
God.
What more proof do we need that it is God's will to heal us? What
about the New Testament you ask?
Mat 8:17 He took our infirmities and healed our diseases.
Why then are we sick and are not healed? That question was asked in
Mat 17:19+ and the answer of Jesus was clear - BECAUSE OF YOUR UNBELIEF.
If you believe, NOTHING will be impossible for you.
Any other excuse is an insult to God. We have no right to say that
He wants us sick after God allowed His Son to be whipped to near death
so that through His stripes we can be healed.
What about Paul's thorn, what about so-and-so that believed and died?
I really feel sorry for those people, but they are not my Bible
(although Paul's thorn was not an illness, but the people who persecuted
them on behalf of their father, the devil).
Beware how you hear! If we listen to people who do not believe that
Jesus stripes brought us healing, the other things we think we know
may be taken away from us by exactly the same "clever" arguments!
These
are arguments of people who walk by instinct and are therefore dear
people, but no different than our dear dog that walks exactly the same
way.
EXO 31:13 Speak thou also unto the children of Israel, saying, Verily
my
Sabbaths ye shall keep: for it is a sign between me and you throughout
your
generations; that ye may know that I am the LORD that doth sanctify you.
qadash
to be clean, to be (causativeily make, pronounce or observe as) clean
(ceremonially or morally):-appoint, bid, consecrate, dedicate, defile,
hallow,
(be, keep) holy (-er, place) keep, prepare, proclaim, purify, sanctify
(-ied,one, self) x wholly.
Through the blood of Jesus we are so cleansed as if we have never
sinned before. We can truly say we have never sinned before. The last
time I sinned, I asked for forgiveness and the Blood of Jesus washed me
clean. That is why I can confidently say that I have never sinned
before.
LEV 11:44 For I am the LORD your
God: ye shall therefore sanctify yourselves, and ye shall be holy; for I
am holy: neither shall ye defile yourselves with any manner of creeping
thing that creepeth upon the earth.
holy = qadowsh
sacred; god; an angel; saint; sanctuary
Because He is our supreme God, He expects a certain behaviour from
us. We must be holy as He is holy. It means that we are supposed to be
saints. He wants us to be gods to those who do not know God yet. He
wants us to be His messenger (angel), we needs to be His sanctuary - the
place where He can let His Spirit dwell.
We tend to look at the world and then create levels of human beings.
You get pastors and then the ordinary congregation just like you get the
president and then the normal folk. You get managers and then you get
the normal workers. How sad that we took these models from the world and
from the old testament Pharisees and implemented it in our new
testament, just because of a lack of knowledge! That is why the
Christians are perishing!
We are all equal under God, nobody submits to anybody, but everybody
submits to everybody. We need to conform to Him, be His sanctuary, His
messengers. But we have exchanged that to become inferior members of
congregations where we are told to submit the calling God gave us. We
are told to submit this calling to human beings who are trying their
best to implement the calling of God on their lives, but forgetting that
if they were part of the five fold ministry, their calling would have
been to perfect the saints for the work of the ministry - to set the
congregation up in their ministries.
ISA 43:3 For I am the LORD thy God,
the Holy One of Israel, thy Saviour: I gave Egypt for thy ransom,
Ethiopia and Seba for thee.
yasha`
to be open; wide; free; safe
We have been set free to go back to the time before the Israelites
asked Abraham to speak to God on their behalf. The next verse goes on to
say that we are precious in His sight.
There is nobody else who can claim that title (verse 11). What man
does can never come close to the way that He sets us free.
He makes us free from sickness, poverty, drugs, habits, phobias,
disorders - free from any thing that causes you not to be free and safe.
Man does many things to lift burdens from our shoulders, but there is
only one that can call Himself: "Yehovah Yasha, the Self-Existent One
that sets you free"
Mat
1:23 "The virgin will be with child and will give birth to a son, and
they will call him Immanuel - which means, God with us.
When Immanuel is with us, we are at peace. If we get so busy that we do not have time for Him,
we will not feel His presence. God did
not make me sick, but He allowed the following situation to show me His
peace that is beyond understanding:
When the doctor phoned us in Cape Town to inform me that I had a
deadly blood cancer that just worsened and I needed to go to the
hospital immediately, it felt as if the blood drained from my head and I
stopped thinking for a moment.
When my speech came back, I asked the doctor whether anything would
change between 6pm and the next morning. I wanted to stay with my wife
and our eldest son just a couple of moments longer. The doctor agreed
that it was OK. I later learned that at that stage, my chances of being
alive after a month was less than 5%. The report I later saw from the
laboratory had big warnings all over it, automatically generated by the
computer: "WARNING! Is this patient aware of the fact that he
has...."
My son, wife and I just lay on the bed and suddenly the peace of God
came over me while my wife was crying and my son was praying. I felt
completely at peace, as if I was in a trance. I was aware of everything,
but not of anything specifically. I lay in amazement at the calm within
me.
God made Himself known as Yehovah Shammah - "The Lord is
there".
It is not good to wait until we are sick before we seek His
presence. We need to do that while everything is well with us. In that
way, we will be able to recognise His presence quickly.
Is He not with us always? Yes, He is. But His presence can only be
felt by somebody relaxed enough to enjoy it. We and our spouse can
stay in the same house, but if we do not stop and relax in his / her
presence, there will be no relationship and no mutual enjoyment of the
other's presence. The same with us and God.
He is with us always - enjoy His presence.
GEN 15:2 And Abram said, Lord GOD,
what wilt thou give me, seeing I go childless, and the steward of my
house is this Eliezer of Damascus?
Both this and the 8th verse, Abram is looking for signs of some
sorts. But, because he is acknowledging the Lord as Master, The Father
is not upset with him.
GEN 22:14 And Abraham called the
name of that place Jehovahjireh: as it is said to this day, In the mount
of the LORD it shall be seen.
This was Abraham's name for the Father after the Father provided him
with a sacrifice instead of his son.
EXO 17:15 And Moses built an altar,
and called the name of it Jehovahnissi:
16 For he said, Because the LORD hath sworn that the LORD will have war
with Amalek from generation to generation.
Amalek fought with Moses and the Lord told Moses to keep his hands
high. As long as he did this, he won. But as soon as his hands dropped,
Amalek would win. So this was not an easy enemy. Then the Lord told
Moses that He would totally destroy this enemy from under heaven and
Moses was to tell Joshua about it as well. This was when Moses called
the Lord: The Lord my Banner. A Banner was the flag under which people
would fight and in this case, that would be the Lord Himself.
The Father is also mentioned quite often in the New Testament. Out of
this, we can determine the following characteristics of the Father:
Mat 5:48 Be ye therefore
perfect, even as your Father which is in heaven is perfect.
We need to be perfect as He is perfect. But what does it mean to be
perfect?
Mat 5:44 But I say unto you,
Love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them that
hate you, and pray for them which despitefully use you, and
persecute you;
Mat 5:45 That ye may be the children
of your Father which is in heaven: for he maketh his sun to rise on
the evil and on the good, and sendeth rain on the just and on the
unjust.
Mat 5:46 For if ye love them which
love you, what reward have ye? do not even the publicans the same?
Mat 5:47 And if ye salute your
brethren only, what do ye more than others? do not even the
publicans so?
Mat 5:48 Be ye therefore perfect,
even as your Father which is in heaven is perfect.
We will know that we are perfect when we love our enemies (always
assume that they are doing their best, never talking bad about them and
always looking for a reason to say good things about them).
The commandment "Love others as you love yourself" has been replaced
by Jesus. Jesus said that we need to love others like He loved us. How
much did He love us? Enough to send His Son to suffer and die on earth
while we were still sinners, I.e. talking negatively about Christian
crusades, talking negatively about His children when they worship their
Father.
- If two of us agree on anything, He will give us what we ask for
(Mat 18:19)
If two of us can agree on anything on earth, Jesus says the Father
will cause it to be. He allowed His own Son to come to earth, be
humiliated and tortured, killed on a cross, just to pay for the luxuries
that we can now enjoy. Normally a father would take the punishment on
himself rather than letting His Son take it. The love God has for us
just passes all understanding.
- He will forgive us (Mat 6:14)
Here is a condition to this promise. The Father will forgive us IF we
forgive those that hurt us. If we do not forgive those who hurt us, then
He will not forgive us -and He is not a respecter of persons. We need to
learn this lesson now: Be glad if somebody does something against you,
because you now have the opportunity to show God how He should forgive
you next time you do something wrong.
- He rewards us (Mat 6:1,18)
- He gives us our heart's desire
-
Psa 21:1 To
the chief Musician, A Psalm of David. The king shall joy in thy
strength, O LORD; and in thy salvation how greatly shall he
rejoice!
-
Psa 21:2 Thou hast
given him his heart's desire, and hast not withheld the request
of his lips. Selah.
 |
We always wanted a house at the coast, but we never thought of asking Him
for it. This was something so far out that we thought it could never
happen.
He eventually sent us to Mossel Bay to be part of a synthetic
fuel plant. We have since moved back to Johannesburg and now that I look
back, I suddenly realise we have our house at the coast! |
He is not a God that sits and watches your every move to see whether
you have made a mistake. He looks after you and wants to bless and
reward you. These rewards are not specified, but because the sacrifice
of Jesus brought us real benefits, I cannot but know that these rewards
are real rewards.
This is something else we need to be careful for. He does things like
this without a big announcement and, if we are not careful, we do not
see the things He is doing for us - without us asking for it.
- He knows what we want before we ask (Mat 6:8,32)
Do not use the traditional sentences in your prayers just to make it
longer or make it sound impressive. Talk to the Father and tell Him what
you want to tell Him. Many people think that many words and loud
shouting will get His attention. You should talk to Him like you are
talking to another human being. It is not your tirade of words that will
get Him to move, it is your sincerity.
- Ask, and you will receive (Mat 21:22)
Your earthly fathers gives you things, how much more will Father
give you good things instead of bad things? If something bad happens
with us, it is not His doing (Mat 7:11)
Sometimes we pray for somebody to get healed and they die. This is
not God's doing. I know that we normally try and justify this by saying
that this person is now properly healed because there is no sickness in
heaven, but the fact is that this death was not part of God's plan.
The only proviso for receiving from God is that you need to believe
that He will give it to you. If you are not sure that He will give it to
you, then you might get it, or you might not.
MAT 21:22 And all things,
whatsoever ye shall ask in prayer, believing, ye shall receive.
We need to know His will, because we perish due to a lack of
knowledge. We accept death because we do not know of any better. We pray
for the sick until they die then we stop. We need to keep on praying,
asking God to raise them from the dead. We give up too easily.
- He wants us to have faith in Him (Heb 11:6)
HEB 11:6 But without faith it is
impossible to please him: for he that cometh to God must believe that
he is, and that he is a rewarder of them that diligently seek him.
We need to change the word "faith" for "know". We have. through
the years, started to use the work "faith" when we meant "hope" and the
word "literally" to mean "figuratively".
"I will literally give you the world on a silver platter if you marry
me". There is no way that you will really be able to do this. And
because we mess up the language like this, we think that Jesus did that
as well. However, when He said "Truly, truly..." He really meant truly,
truly.
Having hope means to hope that something will happen. Having faith
means that you know it will happen. See "Faith"
He wants us to know that He will give us whatever we ask. If
you asked something and you did not get it, you have two choices: Change
your doctrine to suite your experiences or believe God's Word regardless
of what happened in the past.
I know that sounds stupid, but I would rather be a fool for having
trusted God than be a fool for not trusting in Him. We need to
understand what this saying means: "If you keep on looking back
(learning from experiences), you are not fit for the kingdom of God"
LUK 9:62 And Jesus said unto him,
No man, having put his hand to the plough, and looking back, is fit
for the kingdom of God.
- The title Father is a coveted one (Mat 23:9)
The spiritual "leaders" have always enjoyed having titles like
"father", "teacher" etc. I guess they caught unto it from the world. But
our Father does not like that. We only have one spiritual leader, and
that is the Father. We all need to submit to Him and then to each
other. It is really sad to see that certain spiritual leaders are
trying to play fathers for the congregation, trying to take the place of
our Father - and even sometimes the place of our own fathers. They will
do well to study Mat 23 and become servants once again. The five fold
ministry is there to serve the body of Christ, enabling them to do the
work of the ministry. The congregation is not there to submit to the
"leadership" so that they can have a great ministry (Eph 4:11).
- The Second Coming (Mat 24:36)
Nobody knows when Jesus will come again - only the Father knows
(Mat 24:36; Mar 13:32). So relax and do not lend your ears out to
people who think they have figured the Father out while even Jesus
does not know when this day will be.
- Gives you the Holy Spirit (Luk 11:13)
He will gladly give the Holy Spirit to those who asks Him (Luk 11:13).
See Holy Spirit for more detail. The
Holy Spirit needs to be in your life before you can start with your
ministry, otherwise it will be powerless and you will burn yourself out
trying to please the Father.
- He is looking for people who will worship Him (Joh 4:23)
He is looking for people who worship Him in spirit and in truth
(Joh 4:23). The word worship is not an act, it is an attitude. It
means to adore Him, truthfully and with your whole being.
- He is not the Judge (Joh 5:22)
The Father will not judge us, He has given that over to our
Saviour, Jesus Christ (Joh 5:22)
The love of God is great!
The other day, I was in the hospital for an operation after being
diagnosed with cancer. My spleen and gall bladder was removed and I
really battled after the operation. My back hurt so much that I once
phoned Ina in the middle of the night out of hospital. I was astounded
that she answered immediately - and she was wide awake!
My dear wife said that she knew that there was something wrong with
me and was waiting for my phone call. God must have wakened her, but I
did not understand it immediately.
A few months ago my son was taken up in hospital after his wisdom teeth were
removed. When I saw him lying in pain, I knew I would do anything I
could to take the pain from him, even if I had to carry it myself.
Then I understood why God woke Ina up. He saw my pain and knew that I
needed my wife.
Then I understood something else! It must have been more difficult
for the Father to see His Son being beaten up and
then witness the crucifixion, than it was for Jesus to go through this terrible
experience!
Who then loves us more? Jesus or the Father? I do not have the
answer, but I know that the Father loves me at least just at much as
Jesus does! He is not the Great Judge waiting for me to make a mistake!
O Father, how great Thou art!
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