Dear Family, Friends, and Partners of This Ministry,

The month of February is often thought of for love. The Gospel message is love; God is love and love and God cannot be separated. In the church of America, especially, we seem to have left our first love and the reason for the life we now live; in Him we live and move and have our being. Do we? The power is in, “He simply loves us!” This love is constant and is not dependent on performance, just on who we are; the ones He loves. Yippee! Now that is liberty! Man seeks to find a way to be in control of that. Well, it’s been our experience that the moment we think that that love is exhaustible, He blows the lid off. We might just as well enjoy it and jump right in, into our Daddy’s arms and have a great, big hug! Go ahead. You can finish this later! There is no place I’d rather be, than right in the center of the center of His love for me! It is love that invites us to come, love that sustains us, and love that compels us to tell others to come! He lavishes His love upon us to the point that we love, forgive, and have mercy and give hope that others will see the way home too; into the arms of a loving Father. When studying the word lavish, surprisingly, we find its meaning to be prodigal, which means wasted, squandered, recklessly extravagant, outrageous, reckless spending and without reason. Yes that is what we have been doing, giving hope to others, loving them to life, and being persecuted for doing so! We are in the good company of Jesus. That is what He did for you and me. If you love this kind of love, give generously to this ministry and others like it, so that we can increase what we are doing and increase the kingdom of heaven.

Beginning this month, we will be posting a teaching or thought from others who minister Father’s love around the world, such as Barry Adams, James and Denise Jordan, Jack Frost, and others. We believe each one will bless, exhort, confirm and encourage you. The following word comes from a spiritual mother to many of us, Denise Jordan of Father Heart Ministries, located in New Zealand. You will be inspired!

If it’s Too Good to be True, it Must be God!

Denise Jordan www.fatherheart.net

When I first came to know Jesus as my Savior I had no idea about “the Father” nor did I want to know….
My thoughts were, if I stay close to Jesus I may be able to slink into Heaven behind His back and “the Father” may not notice me sneaking through. I had the feeling that God had a face that smiled and frowned. When it smiled your life went well, when it frowned life was bad…. If “the Father” had a personality at all, it seemed that it was full of disappointment, grief and anger.
I had learned when I was six years old, that before the flood, God looked at the world and was sorry He had made it…so He destroyed it, along with all the people He had made. The man told us all, that God was angry with all the sin in the world now, and so he would destroy the world again but this time it would be by FIRE, then he said, “hands up those who don’t want to BURN! I still remember how his eyes bulged as he spat out the words BURN and FIRE! …. I think my small hand was the first in the air. That was my introduction to Father God. My purpose was to stay as far away from Him as possible… I certainly was in no hurry to meet him.

It’s true, I know that the Father grieves over the terrible things that go on in the world…over the greed that keeps countless millions of innocent people hungry and homeless and dying… over injustice, over the way we are destroying the planet… over sickness, over corruption, hypocrisy …I know His compassion inspires Him to anger over the destroying of innocent lives through the corruption of children, in lust, sexual slavery, and all kinds of depravity. I know He is grieved by wars, disharmony, and ungodliness...
But we can get so focused on sin and its effect on the world that it can actually separate and even make us feel guilty for the outright happiness within us, it can hide from us, the joy, freedom and hope that comes from seeing and knowing Father for who He really is. You may think this strange but for many of my Christian years I was confused about what the gospel really is…Yes, I knew it was about the forgiveness of sin through Jesus’ death which of course is wonderful but in my experience there was so much focus on sin, that I wondered how effective Jesus’ death really had been! It seemed that the catch verse for evangelism crusades was the first part of Romans 3:23 “For all have sinned and come short of the Glory of God” and very little, if any focus on the next part which IS the gospel… “And are justified freely by his grace through the redemption that came by Christ Jesus….”
There is a Father who is thrilled with His children, who designed them, who saw them from before the beginning of time, a Father who has been longing to introduce himself to them and for them to know Him as He is…. kind, compassionate, ultimately interesting, fun loving, giving freely and lavishly of everything that is His; a Father who has plans for each of His children’s lives, plans that are full of the promise of prosperity, fun and adventure, health, fullness of joy and deep belonging; a Father who will never again allow anything to separate us from His love.
This Father has a Son with the same heart and together devised a plan to get rid of their enemy’s claim over their creation. The gospel is now very simple…there is a father who lost his precious kids, and he paid the highest price to get them back.

I now have two favorite revelations: 1) We have a very happy Father! AND 2) If it is too good to be true, it must be God!

Abiding In His Love and For His Purpose,
Bill and Deborah Fisher