Abba God: The Best Father
Learning to be a father? You can’t really learn what is important from prenatal classes. Learn it from the Scriptures, through seeing how your heavenly Father, Abba God, is like.
“Sing to God! Sing praises to his name! Extol him who rides on the clouds: to Yah, his name! Rejoice before him! A father of the fatherless, and a defender of the widows, is God in his holy habitation.” (Psalms 68:4-5 WEB)
Abba God is a true hero—a father to orphans and a defender of the widows. He who has perfect power protects those who are weak and vulnerable.
““Ask, and it will be given you. Seek, and you will find. Knock, and it will be opened for you. For everyone who asks receives. He who seeks finds. To him who knocks it will be opened. Or who is there among you, who, if his son asks him for bread, will give him a stone? Or if he asks for a fish, who will give him a serpent? If you then, being evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father who is in heaven give good things to those who ask him!” (Matthew 7:7-11 WEB)
Abba God is good to His children. He knows when to give them good things that they ask for.
“Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of lights, with whom can be no variation, nor turning shadow.” (James 1:17 WEB)
Abba God definitely does not give evil things. There is no evil in Him at all—He is fully good.
“and you have forgotten the exhortation which reasons with you as with children, “My son, don’t take lightly the chastening of the Lord, nor faint when you are reproved by him; For whom the Lord loves, he chastens, and scourges every son whom he receives.” It is for discipline that you endure. God deals with you as with children, for what son is there whom his father doesn’t discipline? But if you are without discipline, of which all have been made partakers, then are you illegitimate, and not children. Furthermore, we had the fathers of our flesh to chasten us, and we paid them respect. Shall we not much rather be in subjection to the Father of spirits, and live? For they indeed, for a few days, punished us as seemed good to them; but he for our profit, that we may be partakers of his holiness. All chastening seems for the present to be not joyous but grievous; yet afterward it yields the peaceful fruit of righteousness to those who have been exercised thereby.” (Hebrews 12:5-11 WEB)
Abba God disciplines us out of love, so that we will profit from it. When emerge from the chastening process, we become partakers of His holiness, meaning we are set apart from every form of death (sickness, poverty, strife, depression, anger, addictions, etc).
“Be therefore imitators of God, as beloved children. Walk in love, even as Christ also loved you, and gave himself up for us, an offering and a sacrifice to God for a sweet-smelling fragrance.” (Ephesians 5:1-2 WEB)
When we know that our God is good and He is love, we can imitate our Abba God as beloved children. We too can walk in love, towards our children, our spouse, and our fellow men. All this is made possible by having a good opinion of Abba God, which keeps us in a state of faith!
See God’s heart of love for you when you look at Jesus who is His exact representation. Through every one of the thirty seven recorded miracles that Jesus did, we can see Abba God’s heart of love and grace for us: https://bit.ly/messiahs-miracles
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Turn “Need to” Into “Want to”
“Not only this, but we also rejoice in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces perseverance; and perseverance, proven character; and proven character, hope: and hope doesn’t disappoint us, because God’s love has been poured out into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who was given to us.” (Romans 5:3-5 WEB)
In life, many things happen to us, and how events affect us is how we view and attach meaning to them.
The apostle Paul had this revelation, and he taught the church to view suffering in a new light—to rejoice in suffering because it produces perseverance, proven character, and hope.
He knew how to reframe the undesirable things in life to become something that he wanted.
Suffering produces pain, but Paul reframed it to mean the training of his perseverance, character, and hope. Something bad became something precious and valuable.
We can apply this mindset to anything in life so that our trust is always in God and not in our self-efforts.
For example, if you see yourself putting on weight, your flesh may cause you to think, “I must go on a diet and exercise more so that I can lose weight.” This way of viewing the situation makes you reactive—on the defensive posture instead of wholeheartedly choosing to do something because you love it. When something is viewed as a burdensome chore, you will struggle with it.
Instead, why not detach your goal from the activity and just focus on the enjoyment of the beneficial action? You are not trying to exercise to lose weight—you are already young, healthy, slim, fit, and strong. Jesus paid for you to freely receive health and healing by faith.
When you exercise, there doesn’t have to be a goal. You can reframe your mindset and exercise just because you find it fun and enjoyable. “I like to run and feel my body challenging its limits. At the same time, I get time to enjoy the beautiful scenery that God has made, and listen to the Holy Spirit speaking to me.”
Wow, just like that, exercise without needing to gain anything from it becomes something desirable, just like the enjoyable activity of playing games for fun. Guess what, you will still reap the fitness benefits of exercise when you do it.
This method of refraining things is important because we don’t want to fall into the deception of getting things done by self-effort. Whatever is done by the flesh apart from God’s blessing has to be tiresomely maintained by the flesh.
If you’re struggling financially, and you’re always thinking, “I need to work so that I can earn money,” you’ll be perpetually stressed out, your performance at work will de-prove, and the self-reliance hinders God’s gracious provision and favor that must be received by faith.
No, you’re not working to earn money. You are a child of the wealthiest King of Heaven and earth—money is not something worth worrying about. You are always well-supplied and never lacking. God’s blessing makes you truly wealthy in all ways and He adds no sorrow nor trouble to it.
“Yahweh’s blessing brings wealth, and he adds no trouble to it.” (Proverbs 10:22 WEB)
Instead of feeling forced to work, work because you enjoy it, and because the people you deal with at work will benefit greatly from having Jesus as Lord. You would love to show them His glory through your words and deeds. When you think this way, you detach the goal of earning money from the action of working, and it just becomes an activity that you enjoy and look forward to—it becomes something very meaningful that you can be passionate about.
When you do your best at work to shine brightly for God, to showcase Christ in you, you will still be paid, and very likely, your job performance will improve. The state of mind will change from one that’s dragging your feet to work, to one that runs in, excited to embark on the next task for Jesus’ sake so that more may glorify our Father in Heaven.
Many times, God’s word says “repent”, and I agree that we can change our mind about all the ways we think negatively. Reacting by the flesh, we will always try to compensate for some lacking area by doing hard work, choosing man’s way instead of God’s way. To see a positive transformation, all it takes is a little reframing according to the Gospel of Jesus Christ.
We don’t have to act like homeless orphans fending for themselves on the streets. We have a Father, and we are His beloved children. When your flesh tells you that you “need to” do something, reframe the whole thing by seeing it through Jesus’ finished work at the cross and what that sacrifice has accomplished for you. See how you can proactively “want to” do the task. Rest from fleshly self-efforts, and actively receive the supply of grace for every need!
Satan the serpent wants you to be stressed out, defeated, and distracted from the things of God so that you are no threat to his kingdom. Discover the powerful spiritual weapons you have been equipped with, and how to always emerge victorious in spiritual warfare: https://www.miltongoh.net/store/p25/Silencing_the_Serpent%3A_How_Christians_Can_Be_Victorious_in_Spiritual_Warfare.html
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Knitted with Christ
“When he had finished speaking to Saul, the soul of Jonathan was knit with the soul of David, and Jonathan loved him as his own soul. Saul took him that day, and would let him go no more home to his father’s house. Then Jonathan and David made a covenant, because he loved him as his own soul. Jonathan stripped himself of the robe that was on him, and gave it to David, and his clothing, even including his sword, his bow, and his sash.” (1 Samuel 18:1-4 WEB)
Today, we will be unpacking the rich passage above. Here, king Saul represents Father God, Jonathan (his name means “gift of Yahweh”) represents Jesus, and David (meaning “beloved”) represents a born-again believer.
Jonathan was Saul’s beloved son, just as Jesus is the Father’s beloved Son.
Jonathan means “gift of Yahweh”, and the Father gave Jesus to us as a gift.
“For God so loved the world, that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish, but have eternal life.” (John 3:16 WEB)
When we first finished speaking to God, praying to receive Jesus as Lord, our spirit was knit with the Holy Spirit—we became one spirit with Christ.
“But he who is joined to the Lord is one spirit.” (1 Corinthians 6:17 WEB)
Just as Jonathan loved David as himself, Jesus also loves us unconditionally without limits.
God took us into His house, transferring us from the domain of darkness into the glorious kingdom of God. We can never return to our old father’s (Satan) house. We are permanently saved.
Jesus as the pre-incarnate Christ made a covenant with Abraham out of love for mankind, and we who receive Him as Lord come under that covenant relationship. Under the New Covenant of Grace, God blesses based on what Jesus’ perfect obedience at the cross, and not our own works-based obedience.
Just as Jonathan stripped himself of his royal clothing and armor to give them to David, Jesus also stripped Himself at the cross so that we could be clothed with His righteousness.
Meanings of the 5 items:
1. Robes: righteousness
2. Clothing: anointing
3. Sword: power
4. Bow: authority
5. Sash: royalty.
As children of God, we have received all the good things that rightfully belongs to Jesus. We have inherited righteousness, anointing, power, authority and royalty.
What did we give Jesus? Our sins! We made Him spiritually bankrupt when He received our sins upon Himself at the cross. Through His poverty, we have become rich in every good way.
“For you know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that, though he was rich, yet for your sakes he became poor, that you through his poverty might become rich.” (2 Corinthians 8:9 WEB)
Thank You Jesus for Your great sacrifice!! Teach us to always keep our eyes on You and serve You for the rest of our lives.
Speaking of clothing, there are seven pieces of the whole armor of God. Learn how to use them, as well as other powerful spiritual weapons like fasting, anointing oil, and more, to emerge victorious in spiritual warfare: https://bit.ly/silencing-the-serpent
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