Fatherhood

Fatherhood

1. God is holy, Almighty Elohim but Yeshua introduced Him to us as a loving and caring Father who loves His children. Many know him as God but few know Him as Father, not by creation but by adoption, whereby we cry out “Abba Father”. (Romans 8:14,15; 2Cor. 6:18)

2. No higher honor can be conferred on us than to be adopted into the family of God, and to be permitted to call the Most High, our Father. No rank is higher than that of being the sons and the daughters of a loving God. (John 1:12)

3. There is a special relationship between the father and his children. We are to pray corporately to “Our Father” which makes us sons and daughters, brothers and sisters. Father heart of God longs to dwell inside us and make us His sons and daughters. (Matt. 6:9; 2Cor. 6:16,18)

4. A Biblical father. 

a. Loves his children, 

b. Teaches them the laws and the statutes of God, 

c. Rules over them, 

d. Provides for them and 

e. Nurtures them to maturity. God is a model Father. (1Tim. 3:4,5; 5:8; Prov.17:6; Isa.3:12)

5. Paul says that you may have thousands of teachers but I am your spiritual father. John addressed the believers as children, sons and fathers. (1 Cor. 4:15; 1John 2:12-14)

6. Yeshua patterned His church on the family, “Greet the church in thy house”. The NT churches were ‘oikos’ or extended households that met in homes, “Now therefore ye are no more strangers and foreigners, but fellow citizens with the saints, and members of the household of God” (Ephesians 2:19; 1Cor. 16:19)

7. The seminaries produce scholars but no fathers. House church patterned on Deut. 6:1-7 (diligently teaching children and grand-children while they are sitting, lying eating or playing), is the charter for planting house churches. A father must be a priest to the family first before he can become priest to congregations.

8. Children imitate their fathers, ‘I am about my Father’s business... As I see the Father, so I do’. Fathers are role models. Children can go to their fathers boldly; ‘And if children of God then heirs and co-heirs with Christ.’ (Luke 2:49; John 8:28,38;44; 10:30; 1Cor.11:1; Heb. 4:16)

9. Family is the prime target of the enemy. Most modern fathers have pitched their tent in Sodom of  prosperity cult and worship another father, Mammon, the god of money, leaving behind dysfunctional families and rebellious “orphans and fatherless” children. (Heb. 12:15)

10. God commands fathers to honor parents, love their wives, not to provoke children and have right relationship with servants and masters. God takes relationships very  seriously and has threatened to smite the earth with a curse for breaking it. (Eph. 5:28; 6:2,4; Mal. 4:6)

11. Church leaders keep believers in perpetual bondage but apostolic fathers release their children to multiply as soon as they reach maturity. Yeshua said, ‘As the Father has sent me, so I send you’. (2 Tim.2:2; John 17:18)

12. Preachers/teachers, bring good news but apostolic fathers come with authority to restructure communities and transform nations. (Eph. 2:19,20;1Cor. 4:15-21)

13. Father heart of God yearns for little children (4-14 Window). We should prioritize ministry among them, because “of such is the kingdom,” and sizable numbers receive Christ while in their teens. Not the church but fathers produce spiritual teenagers. (Mal. 4:6; Mark 10:14 )