Home to Papa

Many years ago, I was meeting with a small group around the Lord. Suddenly something welled up in me to such fullness that I wept and cried out, “I have an Abba, I have an Abba!”

Because you are sons, God has sent the Spirit of His Son into our hearts, crying, “Abba! Father!”
Gal. 4:6 NASB

The word ‘abba’ in Aramaic means “Father, my Father.”  It’s known to be the expression of a very young child, as his first babbling name for Daddy. There’s nothing formal in it.

Jennifer has finished her series about ‘leaving parents.’ I have never read such a transparent and glowing testimony of obedience to the Lord’s commands in scripture about parents. Jennifer’s beautiful journey and arrival to God as Father, was not a chronicle of parental wrongs. It was a collision with the unyielding rock of personal responsibility. Hers is a rare story of spiritual integrity and also, of ultimate arrival at the right place in the Spirit. May God use her testimony for the sake of His longing heart…

Why does the Lord require this wrenching work that so few will obey in reality?  Why? Because of this one brief moment recorded in John:

I am ascending to My Father and your Father, to my God and your God.
John 20:17 ESV

These amazing words changed humanity’s destiny and brought us to our intended origin:

My Father and your Father, My God and your God.

The same relationship as Jesus. The same intimacy and presence!

The great unsung accomplishment of Jesus – so astounding as to be unfathomable – is that He made it possible for us to have our Perfect Father and to be His intimate child.

By human limitation, we are all fatherless children, searching blindly for that stability and connection for which we were created. And it is not only about God – it is the need for a true Father…a parent who has the power to protect and the goodness to give. There is no one, however holy, who can fill such a soul-cavern as this!

Eternal life is to KNOW THE FATHER and to know Him fully and intimately and clearly.

This is eternal life: [it means]  to know (to perceive, recognize, become acquainted with and understand) You, the only true and real God.
John 17:3 AMP

Jesus opened the heavens for us to be children of His own beloved FATHER. And He took us with Him into the same relationship of sonship.  He sent the Holy Spirit to orchestrate this sacred reunion.

That was His gift to the FATHER who wanted ‘many sons in glory’ (Heb. 1:20).  And it was the Father’s gift to us lost children.

We are all orphaned children who are being found and adopted by our REAL FATHER. To know God as God is not to be compared with knowing the Father as your personal Papa (See Ephesians 1:4, 5 NLT).

Jesus’ love for His Father is so intense, that His passion is to carry us also right into the very presence of the Father in Heaven.

We can’t see this but we can experience it. When you ‘follow the Lamb wherever He goes,’ you will find yourself ‘found’ in the sweet presence of your personal Father. He dreamed you and made you and formed you and knows you from a forever past.

Jesus gave us His most precious Father! To know God as sovereign and powerful is wonderful. But to know Him as my Father, my bosom Abba Daddy is to taste heaven. We are God’s children in Christ – with Christ – because of Christ, and we can experience God’s presence in the exquisite bliss of true Father love. There, we can hallow His name and worship Him in His splendor.

We are called to leave our parents so that we can go to our Real Father.  There is a destination! We are invited to accept parental human limitation and let it be. To leave means we are challenged to give up the idol worship that produces bitter disappointment. More, that selfish demand of what is humanly unavailable, is death to our unique identity, not to mention, eternal destiny.

We leave the empty to experience the Full.
We forgive the human to live IN the Divine.

As Jennifer experienced, a mysterious transformation took place in me, how I do not know. One day it was simply there fully within. And explosive joy burst forth in huge love for the Father.

I was the prodigal come home to Father! But for the first time.

At the end of this puzzling surrender, unselfish love for parents is natural and easy, with a cherishing that was never before possible. You love them cleanly, because you love the Father Who loves them…and He loves them through you. And they are free of your dark rejection and your obsessive need!  All perfect.

At last, without effort, you truly and genuinely – in joyful gratitude:

Honor your father and mother (which is the first commandment with a promise). So that it may be well with you, and that you may live long on the earth.
Ephesians 6:2 NASB