This morning as I sit here pondering the Love of the Father — actually the love of the Father towards me. As I realize how deep and wide it really is it’s very overwhelming for me. I know how I love my children and I want them to know that no matter what I LOVE THEM — I have not always shown that the best ways but I’ve discovered the more I accept and understand God’s love for me as a FATHER the more I love my children, it grows deeper and very compassionate.

I so much want them to see God’s love for them with no hinderances because of me!! I don’t want them struggling to try and accept God’s love because they see Him as they see me. God has a perfect plan for humanity and then the devil has his plan too.

See how very much our heavenly Father loves us, for he allows us to be called his children—think of it—and we really are! But since most people don’t know God, naturally they don’t understand that we are his children. ~1John 3:1~

GO DEEP with the Father – allow Him to SHOW you His great LOVE.

Have a fantastic day

Yesterday I came across this scripture that grabbed my heart. I have been sitting with it for over 24 hours now, dwelling, reading and meditating on it. The more I ready it and the more I ponder it a new excitement wells up inside me.

Right now I have some deep prayers happening within me and I need to know beyond a shadow of a doubt that my Father is hearing my prayers!! I am starting in a brand new church with no ministry that I’m doing at this time. I am going to allow the Lord to do what ever it is he wants to do with me. At this time my ministry is to some of my own family. Adam and Rachael are finding a brand new part of spirituality they don’t have, Meghan and Rico are doing the same thing, and soon Noah and Tiff will be here and I’m praying that they find a new excitement in their walk with the Lord.

It’s funny but my wife Diane has always been the one that they would go to with spiritual things, she is deep and she is real and they all see it and know it. But the Lord is strengthening my time with him, changing my prayers, prayers that have depth, power and meaning when it comes to my kids.

So, this scripture once again has spoken to me about how GOOD our Father is — how much HE CARES and LOVES us – EVERYONE OF US!!! Not based on what we do or how good our walk is with him just because it is US – messed up, struggling and broken human beings that HE CREATED. Enjoy this and spend some time dwelling on it. Sing it, make it personal.

Psalms 145:1-17

145 ^1-2 I will praise you, my God and King, and bless your name each day and forever.

³ Great is Jehovah! Greatly praise him! His greatness is beyond discovery! ⁴ Let each generation tell its children what glorious things he does. ⁵ I will meditate about your glory, splendor, majesty, and miracles. ⁶ Your awe-inspiring deeds shall be on every tongue; I will proclaim your greatness. ⁷ Everyone will tell about how good you are and sing about your righteousness.

⁸ Jehovah is kind and merciful, slow to get angry, full of love. ⁹ He is good to everyone, and his compassion is intertwined with everything he does. ¹⁰ All living things shall thank you, Lord, and your people will bless you. ¹¹ They will talk together about the glory of your kingdom and mention examples of your power. ¹² They will tell about your miracles and about the majesty and glory of your reign. ¹³ For your kingdom never ends. You rule generation after generation.

¹⁴ The Lord lifts the fallen and those bent beneath their loads. ¹⁵ The eyes of all mankind look up to you for help; you give them their food as they need it. ¹⁶ You constantly satisfy the hunger and thirst of every living thing.

¹⁷ The Lord is fair in everything he does and full of kindness. 

As I am walking through this time of learning how to become intimate with the Father I can feel an excitement rising up within my spirit. I still sit here blown away how all these years I’ve missed this and didn’t even realize it.

Yesterday we had a speaker that followed up on last weeks message and man I want to tell you HE BROUGHT it and brought it strong. Was funny his opening statement was EXACTLY what I had blogged about that morning — CONFIRMATION that I’m on the right road. He nailed it when it came to how most of us live in the Christian community and it just keeps opening my eyes wider and wider — it is no wonder the church is such a mess and so many are turning away from it and so many look at us as crazy, hypocrites and full of ourselves. We are, talking one way and living another way, the more time that passes the more the church starts looking like the world and worrying about what the world thinks of us. WE NEED to be in this world and we NEED to be a light, I have always preach this and I’ve always said that people in the world WANT a REAL God that REALLY loves them and makes a difference in their lives. So just fall in love with God and allow him to shine through our lives, we DO NOT have to try to “attract” the world to our churches — be REAL — GOD IS POWERFUL – why should we make it look like its friendly to the unsaved by diminishing His POWER? When God saves someone why isn’t it looked at like a MIRACLE? A celebration? Oh don’t get me started!!!

So, yesterday the ONE thing that really stuck out to me and has me thinking and searching myself on is this: He asked the question “who are you?” in other words what defines who you are? All of us have strengths and weaknesses and most of us define who we are by our strenghts. For example if I am the best salesman you’ve ever met, everyone knows it, talks about and tells me about it. My life is built on that — here is the problem when that falls apart, I fall apart!! It can be a job, school, spouse, relationships etc etc —

There is only ONE that can define who I am, that can name me and that is God, He created me and He knows me. If I see myself this way it’s a game changer – If I am living my life defined by the Love of the Father there is NOTHING that can knock me down, take me out. 

So what is the most important part of anyones life? TO KNOW HIM, to know Him like a Father that loves you unconditionally ALL the time. He is Poppa — Father and he thinks the world of me and you.

It only gets better from here…..

I don’t have a lot to say this morning except my Father is so good and He is true to his word and his promises.

This week I had a moment with Him that was amazing and it comes out of my quest of finding my Poppa…. (read Friday’s post). It was a moment when I KNEW without ANY doubt that God not only heard my prayer but he would answer my prayer. It was very cool to hear that, feel that and walk away with such confidence. And the knowing came not from my prayer but HE told me how to pray!! My Father actually told me what to say. It was amazing.

So this morning I was thinking about all of this, I said a couple of days ago this is the place where prayers are answered and I believe that to be true, but here is what I learned from this, my thoughts…..

For me most of the time I would come to God and pray for whatever need I had or a prayer for someone else, that is fine but I would walk away “hoping” God would answer, that He would even hear my prayer. 

I have been dwelling on the word “father” or “Poppa” and how I relate to God, who do I can out to when I pray or when I am in need and it has been very exciting and eye-opening to do this silly little excercise. I realized that I really did not relate to God as my Father, I did not have the intimate relationship with Him I thought I had. So when I was praying for my daughter the other day he tells me to prayer this way “From the heart of a Father to a heart of a Father” and the moment I did that something shifted in my relationship with Him, intimacy went to a new level and place with him, when I got up and walked away I KNEW THAT I KNEW that God my Father, my Poppa heard me and He would answer my prayer. 

Relating to Him as a FATHER does not mean that our prayers will be answered the way we want them to be answered but it means we can have FULL CONFIDENCE that he CARES and will do the very BEST thing in EVERY situation.

The other part of this with me ane with most people is that we don’t have the confidence to speak out victory when our Father says victory, in fact most of the time we do just the opposite, we stay silent with a fear that God won’t do what God says He will do.  In the mean time God says “All of my promises are YES and AMEN” No matter what the outcome is in any given situation GOD will always be faithful and true with His word.

HE is a good good Father

All week I’ve been dwelling on, pondering on and digging into the idea of “how do I come to God?” Last Sunday Allen Hood preached a fantastic message about this very subject (see earlier post from this week) and I must say it’s been a long time since I’ve been challenged in my relationship with the Father.

He said 3 weeks of dwelling on and meditating on one word “FATHER” – in my prayer times what do I fill all the emply space with? Well, I’ve been doing this and many it’s hard, and it’s very challenging. A couple things I have realized about myself and my relationship with the Father….

1. I really don’t have the intimate relationship with God that I thought I did. I mean I speak of it, I preach it and I thought I really lived it out. But I came to realize and God has revealed to me so much about this. I have been asking the question all day everyday, why can’t I come to him as a loving father, one that I can really share my most inner thoughts, struggles and victories with? I always come to him as GOD, kind of like he is GOD, a little scary, a little bit mad at me and I’m afraid to hear what I think he really feels about me. Now, I know saying all of this I’m putting myself out there, but that is OK, I am POSITIVE the most struggle with this. Even in my worst times of my life when I really needed him and cried out to him, it was never tender like a “poppa” So question is why? How do I change that? (man, I’ve preached on this so many times)
2. As always it goes back to our natural life and the relationship we have with our earthly fathers. Mine was good, I knew my father loved me, I knew he cared about me, but we did NOT have an intimate relationship at all. In our home the less dad knew about what was going on the better the house ran or smoother it ran. At least this is what we were taught. My mother was mentally sick from alchol and she lied to him, hid things from him etc… this is what I learned. IF something happened it was always taken to mom and dad left out of the picture. I knew my father could get mad and have a temper and I never wanted to see that. I was scared of him in some ways. NOT that he ever hit me or threathen me, it was just the way it was.

So all week I’ve been struggling with this entire concept of “POPPA” and why I don’t have that with God – I can teach it or preach it like a mad man but it’s not the life I’ve been living.

Yesterday while at the prayer room I was talking to God about this through my prayers. I’ve been praying for my daughter and asking God for a miracle (one that I’ve experienced in the past) and in a moment He says to me “pray like this….. I’m praying from the heart of a father to the heart of a father” And then He said “I am your Father that cares about your prayers, my heart breaks like yours” In that moment something shifted within my spirit – I thought I was going to fall over!!! It was a moment that I knew he heard me and I knew that HE REALLY CARED about me and MY HEART.

Allen said in him message the most intimate word for this is “POPPA” and used the illustration of grandchilren — that’s all he had to say — I think of when I walk in the door and they smile so big and say “POPPA” as they run to me. That is EXACTLY the relationship I want with my Father!!!

I’m going to continue this for the 3 weeks I was challenged to do and I’m so excited to see what happens. I can say this for SURE this morning — the prayer I prayed yestester with my Father was powerful and this is the place where prayers are answered.

Have a fantastic day

This morning I was thinking about “Father” and started thinking about how He feels about my prayers — Well what does the Word say?

⁵ “And when you come before God, don’t turn that into a theatrical production either. All these people making a regular show out of their prayers, hoping for stardom! Do you think God sits in a box seat?

⁶ “Here’s what I want you to do: Find a quiet, secluded place so you won’t be tempted to role-play before God. Just be there as simply and honestly as you can manage. The focus will shift from you to God, and you will begin to sense his grace.

^7-13 “The world is full of so-called prayer warriors who are prayer-ignorant. They’re full of formulas and programs and advice, peddling techniques for getting what you want from God. Don’t fall for that nonsense. This is your Father you are dealing with, and he knows better than you what you need. With a God like this loving you, you can pray very simply. Like this:

I got here about 2 weeks ago and now it is starting to feel like home — I found a place to live and can’t wait for my wife to see it in person. A great little house that is beautiful with a finished basement we can set up as a kids play room or a man cave hahha Diane has not heard that one yet….

I started my new job and so far it just feels right, it is difficult starting over being the low man on the totem pole but it’s just a matter of time that II w will fit in and be on top. I started a different job when I first got here but it didn’t feel right, and the pay changed the day I got there, after a few hours I decided to take this job instead. This was the first job I was offered when we decided to move.

I will go back to Cali Oct. 31st to pick up Diane, Noah, Tiffany and the kids. Looks like Brandon is going to make the move too!!!

Soon it will be life as normal — except the freezing cold and the snow hahaha

Yesterday message really touched me and set my mind spinning. He opened the message telling us that he teaches a class and the very first assignment he gives every year is a 3 week project, he gives them a statement or a word to meditate on, dwell on, ponder and use daily. This year he used a word and that was the word “FATHER” – While in the prayer room, devotional time or personal prayer time they are suppose to just pray or say “FATHER”

He goes on telling them that when you go to prayer and all you say is Father that leaves a lot of empty space to fill, how do you fill it? What does Father mean to you/me? His point is so many Christians don’t know Him as Father. He asked the question… “When you are calling out to God, when you really need Him, when your back is up against the wall, how to you call out to him? This made me think about my own life and my relationship with God.

He used Jesus as an example, when he was going to the cross Jesus knew what he was in for, he knew that he would be beaten, whipped, his flesh tore off his bones, nailed to a cross and hung to die a very painful and ugly death — he knew that Judas was betraying him, he knew what the next couple of days held for him and how did he call out to God? “ABBA, POPPA, OH FATHER…..” knowing that his father loved him and cared about him, he called out of LOVE!!!

Yesterday afternoon I went to the prayer room for a couple of hours and decided to try this excercise, I just kept saying “father”  and sitting, meditating on this and trying to capture how I filled the empty space in my prayer. My mind went to my father, especially my relationship with him as a little boy and very young man. My thoughts went to times when my father worked nights and my mom made sure we did not make much noise and wake him up or bother him, he was right through that closed door but if we woke him or bothered him it would be like thunder roared out of that room. I also thought of how I would always try to hide things from my father, the less he knew the better off everything was. When it came to anything, school, friends, family issues, my father was kept in the dark. He was a good man and I had no doubt he loved me, but not the kind of love that I would call him POPPA, or crawl up in his lap for comfort and protection.

I asked God to forgive me once again in my life yesterday, for not trusting him and always hiding from him, which always turns into performance lifestyle. I asked him to show me and teach me about the Fathers love. He gently reminded me of my grandchildren, who crawl up in my lap with a blanket and lay their head on my shoulder, how when I walk in the room they smile and say “POPPA” and run to me. Or how they come and show me with excitement the new toy they just discovered.

It is all built on relationship, pure and simple.

So, yesterday this is how I filled the empty space in my prayer — and I walk away with a fresh understanding of LOVE and purity of it. This is my journey for the next 3 weeks.

Have a fantastic day.

It has been a few months since I’ve written on here and it’s time for me to start up again.

I just moved to Grandview MO and it’s been very busy trying to everything set up with a job and housing, then plan on going back end of this month to pick up my wife and son Noah, Tiffany and their 2 children and head on HOME.

There are a few reasons we moved here but the main one was for the Prayer Room and church — IHOP and Forerunner Church. These are amazing ministries that we have been plugged into long distance. Diane has been praying for 12 years for this and HERE WE ARE.

If you are not familiar with the prayer room, it is almost 20 years old and the vision, focus and ministry has been the idea of mixing prayer with worship 24/7 and that is exactly what has taken place NON STOP for almost 20 years. Here is a link to it, you can stream it anytime for FREE. Prayer Room

The church, called Forerunner Church is a big church with the same vision as the prayer room as far as preparing the church for the last days. It’s an amazing church that draws people in from around the world, with so many young people along with many older grounded Christians. The leadership is STRONG. The focus is growth of believers moving towards maturity as we walk through this life. The gifts are alive and working in the body. With many classes for new believers, marriages, freedom, growth etc….

I am loving it!!! Today Allan Hood preached an amazing message/teaching about “Father” (I will write more on my thoughts on this next blog)

Tomorrow I start my new job and need to get moving in it — Making the money to live!!! Everything is on schedule and moving forward for me and the family. I miss my last church and I miss my family so very much. I hope to see them frequently during the years.

More on things and what the Lord is speaking to me during my times in church, in the prayer room and in my private devotions.

Here is a ling to the church Forerunner Church