Devotions for God’s Family

1 Corinthians 4:15–21 (ESV): For though you have countless guides in Christ, you do not have many fathers. For I became your father in Christ Jesus through the gospel. 16 I urge you, then, be imitators of me. 17 That is why I sent you Timothy, my beloved and faithful child in the Lord, to remind you of my ways in Christ, as I teach them everywhere in every church. 18 Some are arrogant, as though I were not coming to you. 19 But I will come to you soon,  if the Lord wills, and I will find out not the talk of these arrogant people but their power. 20 For the kingdom of God does not consist in talk but in power. 21 What do you wish? Shall I come to you with a rod, or with love in a spirit of gentleness?

Perhaps we can get to this passage.

Our introduction in the last devotional was super important. You must know that God’s heart and plan is for you to exist forever in the flow of His blessing. Who God is blasts outward from His being and permeates you. Known through faith and knowledge of the Word of God, those things are felt in limited fashion for those who receive the presence of their inheritance through the awareness of the presence of the Holy Spirit.

All by God’s design, in the future, when we are in the physical presence of God, nothing will be hindering the full force of the blessing into you. Then we will understand fully our place in God’s plan. Sin has wrecked our understanding of that for now. One day we will know fully as we are fully known.

1 Corinthians 13:12 (ESV): For now we see in a mirror dimly, but then face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I have been fully known.

Now listen to me carefully…

God made a way for you to walk in the fullness of the blessing today. Even though we do not have the fullness of our inheritance just yet, we can have the fullness of our realization of what is to come.

You have the capacity of your blessing today. Not what we will have, there is more capacity in the future, but God has made you with a huge capacity today. I meet so many people who do not know this or steward this.

Your capacity for blessing right now is massive! God wants you to be overwhelmed by the blessings of God for today. He has a plan, a way, a process for that to happen.

The plan as strange as that sounds in locked inside of what the Apostle Paul was sharing with the Corinthian church.

Listen to this…

1 Corinthians 4:15–21 (ESV): For though you have countless guides in Christ, you do not have many fathers. For I became your father in Christ Jesus through the gospel.

The flow of blessing, God’s blessing is just like water. The flow has avenues just like a river has ways in which it goes downhill. The gravity takes the water downhill. The water is held in the way it should go, it follows the path and down it goes watering everything in its path.

Paul is making a very important declaration about the path the blessing takes in God’s mighty ocean of blessing.

Many stand in a desert and cry out for the banks of the river. Some have even become angry at others, the world and God because of where they are planted. We grow prickly over time to try to survive in our situation.  Learning to be a cactus, but God made you to be a palm thriving by the streams of God. God made you to drink deeply from His streams, yet you do not see the possibility.

Psalm 23:1–3 (ESV): The Lord is my shepherd; I shall not want. 2  He makes me lie down in green pastures. He leads me beside still waters. 3  He restores my soul. He leads me in paths of righteousness for his name’s sake.

God’s blessing is available, but we have planted ourselves far from the source of water and have believed that we are a cactus and we are not.

God’s stream is through…get this now…fathers.

I can not even begin to stress the importance of that word.

The moment I mention that word, in your mind you may say, “Hey being a cactus is not that bad of an idea in light of the fathering that I have seen.”

Just because you have not seen it done right, doesn’t mean that you are going to be ok without a healthy spiritual father. One of the great distresses of our time is the amount of orphans that exist in the church. Not just any orphans, orphans that are fully convinced that fathers in the church are bad.

As-a-matter-of-fact if you look across the world today we are overwhelmed with pastors who they themselves are not fathered at all. For whatever reason, they have developed ministries that are unconnected and separated from those who would look in to care and love. They believe that that is the only way to survive.

Their flow of blessing is dammed.

Paul was super clear in what he said. Guides are great, what you need is a father, he said I have been made a spiritual father to you. We have great spiritual fathers today, yet orphans do not need fathers, do they?

Well, they do, but they don’t want to need a father.

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Last night Karen and two really close friends went out to find pizza and wings. Our journey took us to the inner city of a neighboring city about 40 miles from where we live, it was an adventure. We try to do these adventures on Friday evenings.

We found pizza and wings and then someone (not sure who) said we should try to find an ice cream shop while we were out so far away. No one opposed so we began the search.

We found one and we were not disappointed. Rocky Road ice cream with whole mini marshmallows and almonds was exactly what dropped out of heaven as manna for the Israelites, I am confident of that. Chocolate sugar cones too.

We sat outside for a moment to eat our treats and Karen walked along the store fronts. She came back and said, “Hey there is a worship team a few doors down having a rehearsal.” She invited me to go peek through the window so I did.

Juan said, “I asked God to lead us to where He wanted us to go tonight to minister to some people.” So we opened the door and walked right into this family rehearsing for Sunday worship. Angel and Nancy and their kids, a friend too all working together to get ready for Sunday.

After some getting to know each other we said we want to pray for them to encourage them. I prayed for them and the tears began to flow. There was a father’s impartation. A blessing from the heart of God flowed from us into them. They were in the stream and they gladly drank from that stream.

Angel (pastor) said he had passionately asked God to send someone to love and care for them. He also said that no pastor had ever even visited to see what they were doing and to encourage them. We gladly gave what we have received from others.

The flow of God’s blessing went to us from others in our lives, through us and into Angel and Nancy and now they are in a better position to let the flow of God’s blessing run from them into others.

We hugged and went on our way with the knowledge of God’s plan confirmed and appreciated.

This is exactly what what the Apostle Paul is talking about. Fathering others is the impartation of the blessings of God from one to another. So many people are interested only in the knowledge of God, but it is the relational blessing that God wants you to receive. Paul said it so eloquently in Thessalonians. Listen to this.

1 Thessalonians 2:7–8 (ESV): But we were gentle among you, like a nursing mother taking care of her own children. 8 So, being affectionately desirous of you, we were ready to share with you not only the gospel of God but also our own selves, because you had become very dear to us.

How often, when it comes to ministries and Christians in those ministries do we quickly jump to assessment, criticism and comparison? We size it up and tear it down. We find the commonalities and differences and either give it a check of approval or disapproval.

There is no flow of blessing of God in this. There is no fullness of love in it at all. There is no benefit to anyone. Paul, speaks to the fathering and mothering where the flow of blessing exists, inside of relationship where the care in encouragement exists.

Hey ole cactus, spiny and prickly, are you open to the flow of God’s blessing? Or do you believe that blessing comes from learning more about the Bible alone? That is cactus living for sure. I remember the day I was challenged to live beyond my limited knowledge of the Bible.

A mentor of mine told me, “Dave, why don’t you do the 2 verses of the Bible you know instead of trying to learn more.” I am so glad I was challenged to live out in relationship what I knew to be true. That is when the true blessing of the presence of God began to grow and flow exponentially.

Let’s be open to the flow. Let’s be open to fathers, spiritual fathers that the Lord places in our lives. This is His plan and process for each of us to receive the fullness of our capacity to be in His flow.   

Lord, thank you for spiritual fathers, oh how desperately we need them. Let us honor You Lord, by honoring them. We ask that you would raise up spiritual fathers who know and understand your heart for care and for encouragement. Help us to put ourselves in a place to receive like Angel and Nancy. And also God, in the place to continue the flow of blessing to others. Jesus, Jesus, thank You that the flow started from You! Thank You that we can know the blessing of the Father through You.

Blessings

Pastor D