The Difference Between Having A Dad and Being Fathered
Having a dad does not mean you were fathered.
And not having a dad does not mean you were not, because fatherlessness is not about absence or the lack of absence, but it is about full-hearted presence. Fatherlessness is about the absence of connection and loneliness.
Psalm 68:5-6 - “A father of the fatherless, a defender of widows, is God in His holy habitation. God sets the solitary in families; He brings out those who are bound into prosperity; but the rebellious dwell in a dry land.”
Genesis 27 → A Story Of Stolen Blessing…
I Chronicles 4:9-10 (NIV) - “9 Jabez was more honorable than his brothers. His mother had named him Jabez, saying, “I gave birth to him in pain.” 10 Jabez cried out to the God of Israel, “Oh, that you would bless me and enlarge my territory! Let your hand be with me and keep me from harm so that I will be free from pain.” And God granted his request.”
“Where was Jabez’s father?” The Hebrews had a word for “fatherless” in their society: “yathowm”.
“Fatherless” occurs 43 times in the Bible. Hebrews understood things by thinking about them in pictures. So,when they saw a boy or girl who was fatherless, they attached the picture of “yathowm” to them:
To Be
Deprived Of Hope &
Without Fathering:
We Have A Warped
We Live Outside The
We Face
We Feel
We Cause
This was Jabez’s reality, but instead of sitting in a place of self-pity, he cried out to the God of Israel. There is power in a cry → v.10 → “…God granted his request”.
The cry of Jabez was to move from fatherlessness to being fathered. God granted the request of Jabez.
Jabez went from a place of pain to a position of power, a place of being crushed to a position of being confident, a place of loss to a position of leadership, a place of grief to a position of gratitude, a place of anxiety to a position of abundance, and a place of tragedy to a position of triumph!
The Father Empowers Us…
We Receive A New
God The Father Breaks In On Us And Promises A New Identity:
♥ From
♥ From Broken Dreams – Genesis 37-50 → Joseph
♥ FromWe Obtain The
God The Father Provides The Blessing:
♥
♥ Acceptance → God accepts you just the way you are → Col.1:19-23; Eph.2:1-13; 2 Cor.5:21
♥We Experience An Expanded
a) Self-Imposed → Limits we place on ourselves: insecurities, fears and limits which box us in.
b) Others-Imposed – Many live within the limitations that other have imposed on them.
c) Past-Imposed – Many feel limited by their past; that what they’ve done in their past limits them today.
But here is the truth: Your past is not your potential! Paul discovered this → Philippians 3:11-14.
In our Father, we do NOT face a limited destiny or a boxed in, packaged up destiny, but He literally takes the limits off of our lives → Ephesians 2:10; John 15:16; Psalm 139; I Corinthians 2:9-10. Few of us come anywhere close to exhausting the resources inside us. There are deep wells of strength that are seldom used. With our Father, we no longer live under limitations: either those we have imposed on ourselves or those that have been imposed on us by others.We Encounter Intimacy That
Psalm 27:10: “Even if my father and mother abandon me, the LORD will hold me close.” Whatever hurt you may have received, God Himself is here to heal your broken heart.
True love is being fully known and yet accepted. It is being fully exposed and still being fully cherished. One of the greatest revelations we can ever receive is not just that God loves us, but that He sees us in all of our sin, in all of our weaknesses, in all of our failures, in all of our shame, in all of our dysfunction and pride, and He still loves us – Ephesians 3:14-22.We
Healed people heal people…Isaiah 61:4! We who have been healed reach and heal others. Our destiny is to BE a blessing → Genesis 12:1-3; Genesis 22:18; Galatians 3:26-29; Luke 4:16-22.