Do You Have a Spiritual Father?
Breakthrough School Mentoring Track Will Help
Next Rotation Begins Wednesday
Finding Your Spiritual Father [1Co 4:15 KJV] 15 For though ye have ten thousand instructors in Christ, yet [have ye] not many fathers: for in Christ Jesus I have begotten you through the gospel.

In this series, we examine the validity of the popular idea regarding spiritual fathers. Do you have a spiritual father (or mother)? If you don't have one or don't know who that person is in your life, does it matter? If you do have a spiritual father, what are your expectations regarding that person? What level of relationship should you maintain with them? Can you have a long-distance spiritual father? Can a person who is deceased be your spiritual father or mother through their extant writings or messages? What might a spiritual father rightly expect from you if you are going to call them your spiritual father or mother? For the purposes of this teaching, we will regard spiritual fathers and mothers as interchangeable. In fact, there are differences, and some insist that spiritual mothers are not valid, which we will address at some point in the study.

Is it scriptural to call someone your spiritual father? This term is present in Christian culture, and particularly so in the Pentecostal/Charismatic community. At the same time, there is minimal teaching available about the concept of having a spiritual father. If the idea of spiritual fathers is supported in the Bible, we should seek it out for better understanding. If on the other hand, the Bible does not support the idea of having a spiritual father as it is currently understood then we need to set it aside to avoid giving ourselves over to a religious notion of a spiritual father and return to a Biblical and devotional point of view about such things that Scripture supports. Click for Finding Your Spiritual Father.
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God's Groundbreakers There is much talk today about an impending visitation of God. We hear about revival and outpouring but don't often see it come, and when it does, we don't know why, and it seldom lingers. Examples would be the Lakeland Revival in 2008. Lakeland was a fresh, mighty outpouring of God that rocked the nation, gathered global media attention, and then it vanished as quickly as it emerged. The Smithton Outpouring in 1996 likewise detonated in a small Missouri town and flamed out almost as soon as it came on the scene with little understanding even among the leadership as to why it occurred or why they couldn't retain it.

Converse to the two examples above, it is possible to identify movements that were impactful as well as lasting in their influence. We can look back through time and identify moves of God in the last 500-600 years that radically impacted their day and influenced the vitality of the Christian faith right down to modern times. We can learn from these people. God is no respecter of persons, but He is a respecter of faith. If we do with our faith what they did with their faith, we will experience the same results. In the same vein, things are the way they are because of what we are doing. If we want something different, we must do something different. Waiting and watching for some random causality that requires no engagement on our part is total deception. Jesus made the following statement:

[Luke 17:20-21 KJV] 20 And when he was demanded of the Pharisees, when the kingdom of God should come, he answered them and said, The kingdom of God cometh not with observation: 21 Neither shall they say, Lo here! or, lo there! for, behold, the kingdom of God is within you.

What this tells us is that the kingdom of God is motion-activated, and it is in us. From Jesus' statements in the passage above, we understand that the kingdom that is not IN US is NOT THE KINGDOM. This was Jesus' understanding, and it should be the view we adopt in our posture toward the things of God. In that light, we will look at significant influences of revivals, outpourings, and reforms of the last several centuries. We will look for examples to inspire and inform the narrative of our own lives going forward. If we do what they did with the heart that they demonstrated, God will not leave us without visitation upon the earth in comparable magnitude. Click for God's Groundbreakers.
Melchizedek Foundation In Hebrews chapters, 5:8-6:3, the author of the book attempts to address a Messianic congregation concerning what is called the "first principles of the doctrine of Christ. These foundational teachings are portrayed as necessary for a believer to learn to move from a rudimentary diet of spiritual milk to solid doctrinal food or "strong meat." In pursuit of this "strong meat" we find the motivation for studying the specific teachings referenced in this passage:

  1. Repentance from Dead Works
  2. Faith Toward God
  3. Doctrine of Baptisms
  4. Laying on of Hands
  5. Resurrection from the Dead
  6. Eternal Judgment

Most people reading these six items would say that they encapsulate the general truth of the Christian scriptures as delineated by theology. There would be little sense of any need to go beyond these teachings as they no doubt would seem to a modern believer to be all-encompassing. However, the writer of Hebrews emphatically states that these teachings are only the vestigial beginnings of a rich body of doctrine that we cannot have access to unless we understand these six things. This passage we are studying contends that these basic understandings are so vital not only to understand but to be able to teach that God will not allow a Christian to have any in-depth knowledge beyond them until that believer apprehends these first principles and not only understands them but is so competent in their meaning that they can teach others. 

We are seeking by studying these things the same thing we want when we go to city hall after planning to build a building. What do you apply for? A permit. Hebrews 6:1 urges us to go on beyond these teachings, and verse 3 says we will go on – if God permits us to do so. Thus, we are looking for a permit. If you are going to get a building permit, you must first show competency to do what you plan to do. Likewise, there is implied in this passage of Hebrews 5:8-6:3 a body of truth utterly inaccessible to God's people until they have appropriated and become specialists in understanding these six things. This series will attempt to rectify that deficit and take you down to God's permit office so you can get approval to go on into deeper understandings only hinted at in this passage that most of Christianity has absolutely no clue concerning. Click for Melchizedek Foundation.
The Glory the Should Follow This series of messages are extracted from the book of 1 Peter with a view to understanding what our posture should be when we suffer. For the purposes of this material, we will define suffering as the pressure we experience in different arenas of our life, be it spiritual pressure, relational pressure, physical problems or economic limitations, anything in our life in which our experience is less than what Jesus defined in John 10:10 as life and life more abundantly.

This material is not originated out of a sterile theological perspective but out of my own challenges and difficulties and the dividends of glory that God paid into my life as a result. The takeaway for you is this – God does not intend that suffering define you. As 1 Peter 1:11 emphasizes, the times of suffering are intended to be an onramp to God's glory and promise, bringing us from limitation to limitlessness, from restriction to freedom, from downturn to upgrade. Turning our night into day, our baggage into luggage and giving us a default ground state in life where everything we say and do becomes as effective as if God said it or did it to the glory of God the Father. 
Theologians assert that the theme of 1 Peter is a call to suffer well for Christ without emphasizing what lies beyond suffering both in this life and the life to come. While we don't want to marginalize patience in life's difficulties, the fact is this book only mentions suffering to address what we should expect as the outworking or outcome of such experiences to our benefit and blessing. Let's look at 1 Peter 1:11 to validate this assertion:

  • [1 Peter 1:11 KJV] 11 Searching what, or what manner of time the Spirit of Christ which was in them did signify, when it testified beforehand the sufferings of Christ, and the glory that should follow.

Note that this verse (contrasting other verses on the subject) emphasizes not the glory that is in the suffering but rather the glory that FOLLOWS the suffering that we might go through. When you are going through difficulty this verse encourages us not just to look at the suffering but through the suffering to the glory – the unmitigated glory on the other side of suffering that "SHOULD FOLLOW" but doesn't always. This material will help you posture yourself in the difficulty to shorten the "wilderness trip" and move expeditiously into a life defined by limitlessness, unbounded glory, and unlimited supply. 

Historically the church has preoccupied itself with suffering even to the point of self-inflicted agony through such means as flagellation, etc. 1 Peter 1:11 tells us that when suffering comes, we are to mount a search related to God's timing IN THE SUFFERING that leads to something described as the GLORY that SHOULD follow. If you suffer without pressing into the purposes of God, your painful situation will only end in unanswered questions and emptiness in opposition to God's overarching goal that you exit the suffering into a greater manifestation of His glory beyond what you have ever experienced. When suffering comes, you must enter into a search. For what? The glory that follows suffering. There is no glory IN the suffering, but the suffering ends in glory if you approach suffering according to God's plan for your life. Click for The Glory that Should Follow .

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