Greetings;
I believe that we are in the midst of a grassroots revolution. There is a war on authority and the eternity within the hearts of men and women is crying out for a restoration of fathers in the church. The world is filled with fatherless societies and the authority of fathers has been replaced with the control and the manipulation of people and leaders who grasp for power but understand little about the life-giving nature of true authority.
I believe that the one thing that qualifies God as God is the fact that He is the Father of all flesh. He is the creator of the universes, but He is the Father of all people. He is the one and only true Father of every tribe, tongue, people, and nation. He is the source of identity and inheritance for everyone. We were created in His likeness and His image; and in Christ we are born in Him for the destiny of His name! He is not God because He is powerful; He is God because He is the source of all life. He can be sovereign, but I believe His goodness overrides His sovereignty. I believe that religion demands the sovereignty of God, but relationship depends upon the goodness of God. He is good, because of who He is and He is our Father. Because He is a good, even what the enemy intends for evil God can turn for our good. I believe this is the true source of belief and life for everyone. This is what sets the testimony of Christ in us apart from every religion in the world. God is the source and we are the fruit of Him.
It is time that that we adjust our thinking as the Church. We have little understanding of a true Father, because we have been bound to a system of abusive, absent, and apathetic father figures. This is due to a lack of revelation as to who God really is. It is for the lack of fathers that the Church has been left as a single parent home. Mothers have led much of the Church and women have had to take the role of both the spiritual fathers and mothers in the family of God. This has left a perverted view of the Church and I believe it is time for the Church to become a Father and mother led reality of humanity in the earth.
Before we can fully embrace change in the Church we have to see the reality of that change. What do we see? What we see we will get. We must frame a world by faith. The pile of rubble in our lives is nothing less than the building material to shape our tomorrows (Heb. 11:1-3). The opposite of faith is natural sight (2 Cor. 5:7). Natural sight can often propagate an environment that embraces fear and it is natural sight that hinders the forming of anything that is different than we can naturally see. When I say natural sight I am talking about natural experiences. It includes the seeing of our eyes, the hearing of our ears, and the thoughts of our minds that are formed by the experiences or lack of experiences in our past. We have to be able to see things as they are in heaven in order to create a culture in the earth that is heavenly. This is the wisdom of God. It is based upon things we have never seen, heard, or thought before. What we see, God will give us.
If we always do what we have always done, we will always get what we’ve always gotten. Our vision must be more than one of healed wounds. It must be a vision of a future and a hope. It must include a kingdom. If our main focus is the healing of wounds, it is only dealing with the pain of the past. If we only fix the past, we will live in the past. Surely we must see the healing of wounds in people’s lives. It is essentially important, but it is only part of a healthy family environment. A single parent Church has left the Church with a focus of healing wounds, a boss or business led Church has left the Church with a focus of being successful, but God wants the Church to be made of people who are significant to the nations and the generations of mankind. It is time to fix the foundation and build the house new!
Mothers seek to heal wounds, while fathers seek to cross finish lines. Fathers seek release, while mothers seek comfort. A comforting Church only, will not fulfill destiny. The Church must raise up a generation of people who will press on toward the mark! We must create an unfolding generation who will be willing to compete for the prize! We are not on this earth to escape its trials and tests. We are here to finish the race!
Men are designed to seek the glory of God! A man must seek to make his wife his glory! It starts there (1 Cor. 11:7). A man’s true glory is to see his wife fully alive in Christ. A dominated and controlled woman is a woman who is less than fully alive. A man’s role is to activate, facilitate, and release his wife to the greatness of who she is meant to be in life. The Church is the Bride of Christ and she must also be activated, facilitated, and released to the greatness of all that she is in Him.
Who will fight for the glory of his wife? Who will fight for the glory of the Church? Men must see the blessing of God as more important than their fears in order to find their true identity as men. I am not talking about receiving the blessing; I am talking about becoming resources of the blessing. We must see the expression of fathers and of bishops restored in the Church. These are men who release an inheritance for the unfolding generations of Christ. We must also see ourselves with successors.
Where is the greatness in the Church? The message of God’s kingdom is a message for fathers. We must have the Father’s presence in His house. The testimony of a Father led Church is one that looks forward, thinks big, plans long, connects people to God as Father, fills gaps by presenting the true God, raises hedges by purifying themselves, and prepares a people to stand in the garments of the life of God in the earth! This is a Father led Church.
We must become the true house of God in the earth (Gen. 35:1-7). Children are born, families are nurtured, peoples are gathered, cities are built, regions are settled, cultures are made, nations are governed, and generations are produced. We can only do this by each of us deciding to live life, take responsibility for life, join with others in life, work with others for life, influence others with life, identify with others in this life, server others for life, and live for others as the testimony of life.
The future of the Church is in the home. What we do in our daily lives, and how we reach out to others in our daily lives, is going to be what will set the course for our future and the future of the Church. Let’s be a father and mother led Church with a restored and renewed expression of fathers and mothers working together for the purpose of God in the earth!
Food For Thought,
Ted J. Hanson
