CHAPTER 17
HE IS THE FATHER OF YOUR SPIRIT

SELF-HELP BOOKS, PSYCHIATRISTS, and counseling are excellent resources. However, I have found that no matter what method we are using to get free, we must have a touch of grace from the God who knit us together in our mother’s womb! Psalm 139:11–14 (AMP) says: “If I say, Surely the darkness shall cover me and the night shall be [the only] light about me, even the darkness hides nothing from You, but the night shines as the day; the darkness and the light are both alike to You. For You did form my inward parts; You did knit me together in my mother’s womb. I will confess and praise You for You are fearful and wonderful and for the awful wonder of my birth! Wonderful are Your works, and that my inner self knows right well.”

His love searches out what He knit together. Previously we discussed how our spirit, soul, and body are all meant to be sanctified. We might have begun life with fragmentation of soul, but by His Spirit transforming our spirit man, our end can be greater than our beginning. Satan will do whatever is necessary to stop our end from being more prosperous than our beginning.

I appeal to you therefore, brethren, and beg of you in view of [all] the mercies of God, to make a decisive dedication of your bodies [presenting all your members and faculties] as a living sacrifice, holy (devoted, consecrated) and well pleasing to God, which is your reasonable (rational, intelligent) service and spiritual worship. Do not be conformed to this world (this age), [fashioned after and adapted to its external, superficial customs], but be transformed (changed) by the [entire] renewal of your mind [by its new ideals and its new attitude], so that you may prove [for yourselves] what is the good and acceptable and perfect will of God, even the thing which is good and acceptable and perfect [in His sight for you]. For by the grace (unmerited favor of God) given to me I warn everyone among you not to estimate and think of himself more highly than he ought [not to have an exaggerated opinion of his own importance], but to rate his ability with sober judgment, each according to the degree of faith apportioned by God to him. For as in one physical body we have many parts (organs, members) and all of these parts do not have the same function or use, so we, numerous as we are, are one body in Christ (the Messiah) and individually we are parts one of another [mutually dependent on one another].

—ROMANS 12:1–5, AMP

Faith works by love. Without faith we cannot please God. Faith overcomes. Our faith stops temptation from overtaking us. One of the most difficult understandings for many individuals to reconcile is the paradigm of temptation. We have talked about this in an earlier chapter. I believe many do not understand the enemy’s power of temptation because they have never experienced the Father’s love. I want to concentrate on Father’s love since He is “the Father of spirits” (Heb. 12:9). Many bloodlines are vexed because of a dysfunctional family unit. But because He is Father of spirits, He can transform us into His image.

LOVE, TEMPTATION,
AND BEING ADOPTED

I was sitting at breakfast with two of my sons, Joseph and John Mark, and I asked them, “Why does the Lord allow us to be tempted?”

John Mark answered, “To see if we are devoted or easily swayed.” (Of course, he is the most disciplined kid in the world.)

Joseph, on the other hand (whom I wrote about earlier and who was adopted later in his life out of a horrid childhood), is a fun-loving, messy individual. He felt temptations were brought into our lives to exercise our inner man. He shared, “Temptation is to produce a resistant power in your life!” (I am so thankful for Joseph’s wife, Cynthia, a true daughter in the Lord to Pam and me.)

I later asked Isaac, who is our emotional, six-foot-seven-inches giant, and he shared that temptations come to cause us to commit sins at crucial times in our lives. He exclaimed that he felt that the enemy knows when he is ready to break through and throws up a major blockade to keep him from accomplishing what he should. He recently went on a fifty-day fast to break out of an old generational iniquity.

Ethan, our youngest, just graduated from school and is experimenting in a Torah stage of his life. He is processing life from the perspective that if we will stay in covenant with God, we will be fine. He is not really a warrior at this time in his life and is forming his theology of life on a daily basis. I am just glad he has a God awareness that he is developing as he pursues college and life.

Why am I giving you a family synopsis? Daniel and Rebekah (two of my older children) and their spouses have learned to war along with Pam and me for the overall victory of our family. Each one of our children has the freedom to communicate their thoughts—right, wrong, or indifferent. As their father, I enjoy hearing their thoughts. A good father listens, then disciplines. In 1986, after three children, the Lord spoke to me and said, “I will make you a father!”

THE WAR OF FAMILY
AND CORPORATE GATHERINGS

Dysfunction in our bloodline causes vexation in our spirit man. Entire generations can be vexed. Because I experienced the blessing of family and then the loss and destruction of family, the family unit is very precious in my heart and drive for freedom. I enjoy the uniqueness of each of my children. I love training them up in the way they should go. I watch and listen to their desires and then try to influence their choices as much as any dad would, without controlling them. I feel the same about the body of Christ. I long to see each member equipped and operating in his or her gift. My greatest role and service to both my family and God’s people is teaching them how to war against their enemy. Not each one of us is warring against a shrewd foe, but we are warring collectively to overcome him.

Choose you this day! Understanding family, corporate spiritual gatherings, and gaining strategy for war are all important to our future. The greatest relationship in the ancient Mediterranean world was not just the husband-wife relationship but how all the siblings interrelated with each other. This is how the tribe concept was developed. The family or tribe concept produced the understanding of army. That eventually produced nations. That concept is still valid today. I believe a family’s choice to be righteous in the earth can save a generation and prolong the Spirit of God in the earth realm. Noah gained favor and chose for his family. “As in the days of Noah” is now!

The mind-set of preservation and posterity was developed in the Hebraic culture. Families warred together, prospered together, and then their prosperity was passed on from one generation to another. In American society today, we do not have the same concern of the preservation of one generation’s estate being passed on to another generation. In the New Testament, the concept of gathering was shifted from the tribe concept to the church, or ecclesia. Therefore, we find a relationship of church comparable to that of a family. Family, tribe, church gathering, and the body of Christ (a nation above all nations) have key relationships for us to understand as we go to war in the future. Therefore, the enemy strives to fragment this powerful organism to stay in control in any territorial region.

LEAVE FaMILY AND FOLLOW ME

All relationships get tested when covenant is in question. Abraham had to leave Ur of the Chaldees and then leave Haran after his father, Terah, died. When Jesus presented His call to discipleship, He seemed to attack the family unit. However, after looking at the original intent of family unit, you see why He could use the family unit as a point of discipleship. The family was the strongest of all units in the earth. In Matthew 10:34–36 (NIV) we find the most famous scriptures linked with war. The Lord said the following: “Do not suppose that I have come to bring peace to the earth. I did not come to bring peace, but a sword. For I have come to turn a man against his father, a daughter against her mother, a daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law—a man’s enemies will be the members of his own household.”

Matthew 12:46–50 (NIV) says, “While Jesus was still talking to the crowd, his mother and brothers stood outside, wanting to speak to him. Someone told him, ‘Your mother and brothers are standing outside, wanting to speak to you.’ He replied to him, ‘Who is my mother, and who are my brothers?’ Pointing to his disciples, he said, ‘Here are my mother and my brothers. For whoever does the will of my Father in heaven is my brother and sister and mother.’” These statements seem hard, but the Lord is dealing with the emotions of those who will follow Him and creating a family unit that will survive the persecution and wars of the future.

“Jesus of Nazareth publicly dissociates himself from his natural family, professes loyalty to a new surrogate family, and apparently expects his followers to do the same. It is this resocialization—at the kinship level— that marks early Christianity as distinct among the voluntary associations of Greco-Roman antiquity. The social solidarity characteristic of the family model, in turn, goes a long way to explain both the intimacy and sense of community so often cited as unique to early Christianity, and the attractiveness of the early Christian movement to displaced and alienated urbanites in the Greco-Roman world.”1

Consequently, if you were willing to leave your family unit to follow Him, you would be known for your ultimate devotion. The church was to become a surrogate kinship group. Jesus was never encouraging us to negate family responsibility. However, let me to paraphrase what He was saying in Luke 14. He seemed to be saying, “If you have any emotional tie that you are exalting above Me, I cannot teach you what you need to know as you enter the season that is ahead of you!” Family is a tremendous war unit, and nothing is as strong as a whole family bloodline that is submitted to the Lord.

HE IS THE FATHER OF SPIRITS

“We have had fathers of our flesh. … The fathers of our flesh, i.e., our natural parents, were correctors; and we reverenced them, notwithstanding their corrections often arose from whim or caprice: but shall we not rather be in subjection to the Father of spirits; to him from whom we have received both body and soul; who is our Creator, Preserver, and Supporter; to whom both we and our parents owe our life and our blessings; and who corrects us only for our profit; that we may live and be partakers of his holiness? The apostle in asking, shall we not much rather be in subjection to the Father of spirits, and live? alludes to the punishment of the stubborn and rebellious son (Deut. 21:18–21).”2

We can overcome rebellion, break all fragmentation, and remove any vexing force from our spirit. “‘If a man have a stubborn and rebellious son, who will not obey the voice of his father, or the voice of his mother, and that, when they have chastened him, will not hearken unto them; then shall his father and mother lay hold on him and bring him to the elders of the city, and they shalt say, This our son is stubborn and rebellious; he will not obey our voice: and all the men of the city shall stone him with stones that DIE.’”3

We must learn how to be subject to authority. Our earthly parents were meant to be protectors, nurturers. “Had he been subject to his earthly parents, he would have lived; because not subject, he dies. If we be subject to our heavenly Father, we shall LIVE, and be partakers of his holiness; if not, we shall LIVE, and be treated as bastards and not sons. This is the sum of the apostle’s meaning; and the fact and the law to which he alludes.”4 However, because of grace, the “bastard curse” can be broken. The power of vexation linked with our spirits can be removed. He can become our Father.

He is the Father of spirits. This is an important revelation to understand our makeup. He allows us to develop our soul, but He is the Father of our spirit and knows how to transform us from the inside out. This is what makes us a child of God. This is why we can have an inheritance in Him.

ADOPTION IS A KEY

A person can be vexed from conception if he or she is rejected by those who were used in the act of creating that person. If a person is left abandoned, life is a constant, fragmented mess filled with vexation. However, the power of adoption can overcome the power of vexation!

The act of taking voluntarily a child of other parents as one’s child is very important in understanding the grace of God. This is really an act of God’s grace when a victim of sin, rejection, and abandonment is brought into his redeemed family. In the New Testament, the Greek word translated “adoption” literally means “placing as a son.” It is a legal term that expresses the process by which a man brings another person into his family, endowing him with the status and privileges of a biological son or daughter.

Adoption was not common among the Israelites but did occur when Jews were influenced by foreign customs. However, we do find one of the most famous adoptions occurred by Pharaoh’s daughter when she adopted Moses. When the pharaoh’s daughter adopted Moses, we find this phrase: “And he became her son” (Exod. 2:10). By the time we get to Jesus’s day and Paul’s writings, we find Roman customs had great influence on Jewish family life. One custom is particularly significant in relation to adoption. In the eyes of the law, the adopted one became a new creature and was regarded as being born again into the new family. This is why in the Book of Romans we find adoption as an illustration of what happens to the believer at conversion (Rom. 8:15, 23; 9:4). Because God is the Father of spirits, He “predestined us to adoption as sons” (Eph. 1:5).

In Romans 9:4, Israel, as a nation, also found its place of honor in God’s plan. Today, that is why if a nation blesses Israel and remains in relationship with it, they will have blessings. If a nation rejects Israel, they will eventually be vexed. Gentile believers have also been given the Spirit of adoption! This allows all of mankind to cry, “Abba, Father” (Gal. 4:6). This assures the Gentiles of eternal life and resurrection (Rom. 8:23). “For you did not receive the spirit of bondage again to fear, but you received the Spirit of adoption by whom we cry, ‘Abba, Father’” (Rom. 8:15).

KNOWING FATHER

He is the first person of the Trinity. God has revealed Himself as Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. He sent His Son into the earth to be the perfect and infinite object of His love. He is the “Father of our Lord Jesus Christ” (1 Pet. 1:3; 1 Cor. 8:6; Eph. 1:17). Yeshua taught His disciples to address God in prayer as “our Father.” He did not use that form Himself.

He is the Father of the Jewish nation. Israel is not like other nations. Israel is “the nation.” The chosen nation owed its origin and continued existence to His miraculous power and special care. Israel is a people and a land with the Torah. As their Father, He loved, pitied, and rebuked them. Also, He required obedience of His people. As a good Father, He disciplined them until they learned the joy of submission. He has a fatherhood. God is represented as the Father of various objects and orders of beings that He has created. He is “the Father of lights,” the heavenly bodies (James 1:17). He is also “the Father of spirits” (Heb. 12:9). He is particularly the Father of man. We are created after His image (Acts 17:26; Luke 3:8).

Let the redeemed say so! He is Father of the redeemed. Those who receive Him as Father are actually saved through the Son, Jesus Christ, and admitted to the privileges of children in the divine household. This is how adoption works. Christ taught His disciples to pray, “Our Father …” He said to the unbelieving Jews, “You are of your father the devil” (John 8:44). Therefore, those who receive the Son have their spirit man activated and are brought under the subjection to the Father. Then the third person of the Trinity, the Spirit, fills the spirit of man. This breaks the power of the vexation that the fall of man has on any individual person. The spiritual and moral relationship that was destroyed by sin is restored by grace. A divine renewal of the soul and body then begins (Rom. 8:14–16).

This is how the adoption of man begins. Adoption simply means you receive the privileges of a natural son or daughter. We find examples in the Bible of both male and females experiencing this. Abraham even mentioned that he had adopted his slave, Eliezer, as one of his sons. In Roman culture, the adoption of a stranger into a bloodline caused that stranger to become a member of a family. This tie could not be broken. “Usually, the ceremony of adoption took place in front of at least seven witnesses with this statement: ‘I claim this man (or daughter or slave) as my son (or daughter or slave).’ That is why in the New Testament adoption was used as an important concept of our relationship with the Lord. Therefore, we are fully reinstated from a lost state of privileges into all the privileges of God the Father.”5

Adoption is a positional word not just a relational word. I think many people do not understand their time or place since they don’t understand the position of adoption they have with their Creator or Father. Many people really never experience God’s love for them.

A FATHER’S LOVE

I have shared before about my earthly father. I loved him dearly, but I watched him stray from God, seek a life filled with lawlessness, get caught in a myriad of schemes, and end in destruction. However, one day when I was driving to work, the Lord’s presence filled the car. His power was so tangible that I had to stop the car and pull to the side of the road. He poured His love into the car and into my heart. I said, “Lord, what have I done that You would manifest Your love to me like this?” The Lord said, “This is how much I loved your father.” I immediately saw the love of God in a way that I have never seen His love for His children. No matter what my dad did, God’s love was unchanging. My dad rejected that love, but the love was there and available. Once I saw the love of God for my earthly father, knowing how evil he was, I saw God’s love as pure and holy. Matthew 7:7–11 (cjb) says, “Keep asking, and it will be given to you; keep seeking, and you will find; keep knocking, and the door will be opened to you. For everyone who keeps asking receives; he who keeps seeking finds; and to him who keeps knocking, the door will be opened. Is there anyone here who, if his son asks him for a loaf of bread, will give him a stone? or if he asks for a fish, will give him a snake? So if you, even though you are bad, know how to give your children gifts that are good, how much more will your Father in heaven keep giving good things to those who keep asking him!”