Ep. 4: Approaching God as our Father

This episode explores the transformative practice of approaching God as our Father through prayer. Drawing from Jesus's teaching in the Lord's Prayer, this teaching unpacks how prayer is not about many words or religious formalism, but about heart-level communion with God. Learn how the spirit of adoption frees us from fear and insecurity, why our identity as God's children changes everything about how we pray, and practical ways to overcome soul wounds like rejection and abandonment that hinder intimacy with the Father.

Transcript

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Welcome to On This Rock, the discipleship podcast that trains you to follow Jesus Christ. As you listen, we trust you'll gain a deeper understanding of who he is and anchor your identity in Him. Christ in you is the only hope of receiving God's glory. Trade your pebble for the rock of ages. Welcome to the show with your host, author, and seasoned Bible teacher, Nana Anci. Be their loyal listeners. It's so good to be with you on another episode of On This Rock Podcast. In our first season, we focused a lot on redemption. Now Christ redeemed us for a purpose and that purpose is fellowship. We're the Godhead. So we are not just redeemed to escape hell and go to heaven, but we're redeemed to have fellowship with God, communion with God. So the fellowship of the cup, which is the body and the blood of Jesus. So it's an invitation. We are invited to live in communion with God, in union with God, sharing in his glory, participating in his nature, and communion requires communication. Now Heaven's method of communicating with God is prayer. So I'm going to have a series of teachings on prayer. Prayer is about priesthood in Revelation one, verse five. And six, we are told that Jesus has redeemed us and washed us in his own blood to make us a kingdom of priests. So in the kingdom of God, the people who live in that kingdom are priests. If you're not a priest, you're not in the kingdom. Uh, all the people. Now there, there are also priests who belong to different religions, different kingdoms. So there is an alternative priesthood to the priesthood that God is offering us. But my, my focus is of course, on the priesthood of Jesus Christ. He is the high priest. He is right now in heaven. As a priest, as our high priest, the highest priest in the kingdom. This is significant because when Jesus was on Earthed, while he was here in a human body on Earthed, he had a ministry, the fivefold ministry of Apostle. You know, Hebrews three, one calls him the apostle, our apostle and high priest. So he was an apostle. He was a teacher. They called him rabbi. He was a pastor. He was very pastoral. He was also a prophet. It. You know, he functioned in that office. So Jesus had a fivefold ministry, but his ministry on Earth was only for three years Now in eternity, he entered eternity as a human being. He didn't just enter there as God. He went there as our representative. This is what the book of Hebrews elaborates on. Now, he's there as a priest praying, seated at the right hand of the father. He has proximity with the father and that proximity, that fellowship, you know, is based on prayer. Their communication is prayer because the Bible says he's there ever living to make intercession for us. He lives to pray. He lives to pray. His fellowship with God consists of prayer and he's been praying for more than two, 2000 years. So you put those two things together and you realize that prayer is very important. He says he has made as a kingdom of priests. Now the problem is a lot of Christians are not functioning as priests. It's a kingdom of priests. So we rule by prayer. We are kings and priests in Christ. He is a king. He is a priest in him. We get to function as such, and the fivefold ministry really is supposed to train us to grow us to enter into this ministry of prayer. So think of the fivefold ministry. As you know, if you look at the Old Testament temple. It's the Holy Place ministry, and it's supposed to train us to enter the Holy of Holist Ministries, which is praying and communing with God, kind of like Jesus has. So proximity to God's presence, but for the purpose of priesthood. So in the Old Testament, the only people who could go into God's presence were priests. That's why we had to be made priests because nobody goes into God's presence as a human being who is not a priest. So unlike the Old Testament where certain people, Aaron and his descendants were set apart to be priests, to be people who had fellowship with the presence of a holy God in the New Testament, this new covenant. That Jesus has cut for us with his body and his blood through the work of redemption. Everybody that comes in the kingdom is a priest. Everybody gets to come close to God. Everybody gets to enter the temple and go into the holy of holy. And have fellowship with a holy God. But we have to go through the consecration of a priest. We have to, like the Old Testament people, did we have to go through the protocol for coming to God for fellowship? And so this, this teaching is going to start with the Lord's Prayer because the Lord's Prayer. Is Jesus giving his disciples the pattern, the blueprint, the protocol for communion with God, for communicating with a holy God. And so it is very, very important. It is not a fixed formula you just recite. It is a curriculum. It is very, very deep. It is very rich and it's life transforming, so I encourage you to really stay with me to the end and to also track the subsequent teachings that I'm going to do. So Jesus is pretty much teaching us that the channel we use to pray is not the only thing that's important, but the communication protocol we keep is also very important. Now, the channel is a subject I deal with. In the first season, when I talk about redemption and I talk about coming to the father through what Jesus has done for us to pay for our debt, coming through the blood, you know, all, all those things we talked about, sanctification, all that has to do with making sure that we are using the right channel to come to God. Now, the Lord's Prayer is really about, okay, now I've got the channel. I've got Jesus. You know, and I'm coming to the father through him, but I need to come by his protocol because that is going to determine the type of relationship that I am going to build with God. So it, it's going to do with the type of life that you are going to build, the kind of faith. That you are going to build on the foundation that has been established because the Fed season was all about really foundation foundational stuff, right? The foundation of Christ, his teachings and, and the work that he did, his person. But now he's going to teach us. He's gonna teach us. Prayer as heaven, heavenly communication, and also communicating with God as our father, and also knowing the father's love and how that changes us. So these are three subheadings that I'm, I'm going to focus on today. First, we're gonna touch on prayer as heavenly communication. Jesus warn his disciples that the key to success in prayer is not the words we recite. And so he said, and when you pray in Matthew six, seven, he said, when you pray, which this is also presuming you are gonna pray, when we were made to pray, we're a kingdom of priests. We were made for communion through prayer. You know, so if you're not praying, you, you are really not functioning. In your, in your identity. If you're not praying, you revert back to your old status. You've got to pray to, to, to be spiritually alive in Christ. You've got to pray. And Jesus says, when you pray, you don't keep on babbling like pagans, for they think they will be heard because of their many words. So he's saying yet the success of prayer is not the many words. It's not the sophisticated words. It's not how impressive your words are. Prayer is communication, but he's making it clear that it's more than words. It's not just about words. So what makes prayer effective? What makes prayer effective? As heavenly communication as heaven's means of talking to God, of approaching God, of having intimate fellowship with him. It's our heart. God is far more interested in the state of our hearts than he is in the words that we say. Because our heart speaks louder. We know God by heart. Faith is in the hot. Love is in the hot. Jesus said the who you are, it's in your heart. And so what you, it's not what you consume, but it's what comes out of you that shows you who you are. And so Jesus's prayer blueprint addresses the heart. This is something to keep in mind that when you're studying the Lord's Prayer, this has to do with your heart and the state of your heart and managing your heart because your heart is going to determine the kind of fellowship that you have with God, the state of your heart. Not so much the words. It is the state of your heart that's going to make your words carry weight with God in prayer. And so some of them most powerful prayers that I pray, they're not even with words. Romans eight, six tells us that the Holy Spirit is also praying. So two thirds of the Godhead pray. Jesus is praying for us in heaven. The Holy Spirit he gave us who dwells in us is praying through us. And, and some of you may have your prayer language, the gift of speaking in tongues. You know, when you pray in tongues, the Bible says he's praying a language you don't understand. So you're praying out mysteries and this is one of the most powerful gifts you could ever have because God will bypass your limited human understanding to pray prayers that sometimes you don't even have the capacity to, to really take, to really understand to it'll be too much for you. But if God is praying those words, he's praying your future, he's praying ahead of you. He's praying you out of dangers. He's praying for people. He's praying all sorts of prayers. It's limitless what God can do through the gift of speaking in tongues. So if you're not filled with the Holy Spirit, with the evidence of speaking in tongues, I encourage you to pursue God for that. If you have doubts about whether this is for today or this is for you, I, I encourage you to go find a good study on prayer. And in tongues. Praying. In tongues. Now, Derek Prince is a great recommendation. You can also look for other recommendations. Just pray to God and ask him to lead you. So the Lord's Prayer should really be understood as a pattern for hot communication, the kind of communication that attracts God's presence for fellowship. The heart is very important. God is having relationship with your heart, with He wants your love, he wants your devotion. The heart is all about that. It's about what you are devoted to. There is a holy place, a hollowed place. And what do you have in your hollowed place? What do you consider sacred in your heart? Is it God or is it, or have you put something above him or beside him? So the state of your heart is so important. God wants the heart. The heart must be consecrated to God. When we're talking about consecration, it's like God setting boundaries around your heart so that he can dwell in your heart and have fellowship with you. So consecration has to do with fellowship. Anything that breaks that fellowship, you stay away from. And we have disciplines that encourage that fellowship. You know, like things like fasting that subdue the flesh. So if you're not a person who practices fast fasting, that's also something you have to really study and, and begin to practice because you will just revert to the flesh. You'll just revert to living the old status life. And God has redeemed us for a new life. You know, the Bible says that we are new creations. He has made something totally brand new in your spirit, and he wants to transform your soul so that your life. Here, even here can look different, can reflect that new life that he has, he has given you, which is based on his nature and the benefits of living out his nature. Because your actions will show what you serve. And so sometimes people can give God lip service, but their actions are showing that they're serving a different God. Their heart is devoted to something else. Family, money, jobs, whatever. We can put things above him or beside him. You know, and so genuine worship is going to originate from your heart. Your heart is the seat of the faith and love. So when we're talking about the Lord's Prayer and we're talking about prayer, discipleship, and we're talking about priesthood, we're really talking about maintaining a consecrated heart and the, and so the terms of that or what you need. To, to inculcate what you need to be trained in, to be able to have that kind of posture and lifestyle that invites the presence of God, that worships God, that is devoted to him, that that can live the New Testament life. But one thing is notable. You know, when Jesus begins his teaching on prayer, it's interesting that he doesn't start with petitions. He doesn't start with asking God for things. He starts with the address. And this is so significant. He starts with the address. When we're talking about our father, which is the focus today, we're talking about the address. It matters because if you pray great prayers, but they go to the wrong address, you haven't accomplished much. It's like sending mail to the wrong person. You have missed it. And so according to Jesus, there are only two ways for humanity to address God or to approach God. We're talking about the address. We're talking really about the approach. How are you approaching God? And Jesus already said, don't. Pray like pagans, who think many words is what it's about and don't realize it's about the heart. And here he's gonna tell us, you know that don't pray as pagans who don't pray to God as father, but pray as children who call God as father. It makes all the difference. It's a diff, it currents different covenants. It, it's a, it's a different package. Pegas do not go into the bedroom. Children can run into the bedroom of their parents. Intimacy with God is only possible if you relate to God as father. You cannot have intimate fellowship with God if you don't relate to God as father. And so many, many Christians have father issues because often our ethnic fathers did not represent fatherhood to us in the way God intended. And some people straight up didn't have a father growing up, so they're missing something and it affects how they relate to God. What you know is gonna affect that. So often God has to correct our A approach. He has to correct our thinking. We may say, father, we may say we're children, but in our hearts we don't believe it. We live like orphans. We live in fear. We don't know the father's love, and so we need to come into Revelation, knowledge of the Father and his love, so that we don't, when you're saying Father, it's not just a root thing. You're not just repeating words, but it's something that you're saying with Revelation. And so before Jesus, you know, before he's finished work on the cross. He did everything to, to train his disciples to try to teach them about this, but they didn't really come into that revelation until after he ascended and he gave us the Holy Spirit. So the Holy Spirit really unveils God to us as Father. He really shows us, you know, Jesus is the Son. Only the son can show us the Father. So before he came, it wasn't possible to know God under the law as father. And so they lived like pagans in a way because they, they worshiped God from a distance. They worshiped God with a veil. The veil to the Holy of Holies, of God's presence was not open to them. It was, it was not until Jesus died that he rigged that veil supernaturally, which is the veil of the flesh, which is the veil of our, our carnal human, you know, natural senses. Being open, being, it's like passing through that being separated so that you can come into knowledge of the God who lives in eternity. Not just from reading a book, but experiential so that you hear him, so that you discern him, so that you can have fellowship that's based on a living God relating to you and you relating to that God by faith. It's fate because it's unseen. It's unseen, but there's a reality to it. So under the old covenant, access to God was mediated through formal religion. You know, the priests, they had their priest, priestly structure, and it was all formalism. It was all the form, you know, of things. But in the New Testament. The way to know God as father, that Jesus has inaugurated for us. It's a new way, it's a way that is not based on formalities, rituals, going through, um, ceremonial things and just, you know, practicing rituals. No, he, he tells us those things were shadows. There were symbols. Now the real thing has come and so God really wants us to move away from symbol worship symbol fellowship. You know, where we just do things by, because we just do them. He wants those things to open the gate for us to enter into his presence. So he has a way, he has a protocol, he has ways to show us how to do that. How do we connect with the God who's not seen? How do we pray to him and how, and experience his interaction, his response, because prayer's a two way communication. Jesus says in Matthew six, nine, no one comes to the Father except through me. No one can know God in that way except through him and what he did for us on the cross. Only the son, like I said, can reveal the Father. He's the only channel. Now we got the channel. If you're saved, you got the channel, but you need to understand the protocol. You need to have a revelation of the truth about access. And so in his teaching on the Lord's Prayer, when he's saying, don't come, as pagans become as children, the first thing he, he, we have to get grasp is that, is that phrase our father. It really indicates a covenantal shift. It, it is, like I said, a package. If you come as a father, you have the benefits of a child. You have the response of a father to a child. You have the, the, the inheritance of a child. You have the, you know, if I go to my father and I, you go to your ugly father. If he's still alive now, my father passed five years ago, but you know, I used to have this. Freedom of just approaching him to ask for things and he's, because he was my father, I often got what I wanted. He was very good at providing for me. And you know, that was one of his best qualities. So I could go up to him and I could just ask him for whatever I needed. And often I would get it, like I said. So I had no problem going to God and saying, God, I need this. I need that, you know, as a child, because I understood that about my dad. I understood that that's what fathers do. However, my father was not, you know, culturally, he, he wasn't the type that you could just run to and just sit on his lap and just have that kind of free, you know, relationship. He was very formal as a person, you know, so interactions were very formal and I, and I, and I didn't realize this, but I was relating to God in that way. It was like, okay, I need something. I go to God, but I wasn't really cultivating intimacy with God. Because I was kind of treating him like that. I was, so this is what I mean by we tend to project without even realizing now, God had to bring that to my attention for me to realize, oh, I'm treating you like that. You know, like I said, pagans can go in the bedroom, but children can, so God doesn't, he wants us to revere him as father, to honor him as father, and we'll get to that when we talk about Hall be thy name, because that people messing, that people not reveering God is costing them their, their provision. It's costing them destiny. Honor is super important and so not honoring God as father is a really big problem now. In this, our father, in this approach, I'm focusing on just coming into that true knowledge and revelation that you are loved by God, you are in a new covenantal relationship, and that that comes with benefits. Benefits that pay Gods don't have. As, so Jesus wants us to move past religion, you know, performance culture, trying to try and impress God. By by, by how we pray or what we do. And just coming as children, coming as children and recognizing that he has removed the old covenants of the law and we are not. And the law. We are under now. There are two laws actually. Now. We're not under law in terms of living by the letter of the law, but we are under the law of the spirit of life in Christ Jesus. This is what Romans eight tells us. So it's not like God just took the law and there's nothing. No, we're supposed to live. Depending on the Holy Spirit leading us as our guide, as Jesus talked about in John 14 and John 16, he's our guide. He guides us into all truth. He's our comforter, so he stands in for the father and the son, and we're supposed to follow him. He makes the word alive. And when he makes the word alive, it becomes fate to you and me. And so when we try to live the Christian life without him, we can't truly know God as father. And we just become legalistic and we fall back into bondage. We revert into Old Testament re realities, which is really living like we have not been liberated. So knowing God as Father is, is key, and fatherhood really is connected to Fellowshiping with the Spirit, with the Holy Spirit. So now let's talk about the second. Second main. Area that I wanna focus. Main stop heading. Family is the eternal purpose. God is wanting to build a family. In Ephesians three, 14 to 15, the Apostle Paul prayed, he said, for this reason, I kneel before the father, from whom every family in heaven and on Ed derives its name. So Paul tells us here that. Fatherhood in the universe is traced back to the fatherhood of God in two realms, in heaven and on earth. So fatherhood begun in heaven, not in earth. It begun in heaven. It's the relationship of God the Father, we God the Son, and they wanna bring us into that fellowship. And the Apostle John declares in John one 18, no one has ever seen God. The only son who is truly God and is closest to the Father, has shown us what God is like. So only the Son, like I said, can show us the Father. So he's the only channel that we have to use to get to the father. And God's purpose in creating mankind is to grow his family. Paul tells us this in Ephesians one, five. He says, you know, God gave him this revolution that the reason why he made humanity was. Family. He wanted to grow his family. So he says, God predestined us to adoption as sons and daughters through Jesus Christ. So when sin interrupted that purpose, he already had a plan that he was going to give us. His son, whom the Bible says was, was, um, slain before the foundation of the wealth because in eternity he already gave up himself as a sacrifice for us. And he, he did that so that God could still achieve that purpose. Of having us as sons and daughters. So he said he, he says he predestined that we would be adopted by him through the wake of Jesus Christ. And this concept of adoption is so important. I mean, even ethnic adoption, when you think about it, when you are adopted as a child, it changes your legal status. So it's the same thing. In the spirit realm, in, in this new covenant, when God adopts you in Christ, your legal status has changed. You are no longer a slave. You are a child of God. You are no longer abandoned. You are a child of God. You are no longer forsaken. You are a child of God. You are no longer rejected. You are accepted as a child. And many, many people deal with these soul wounds. These are all soul wounds. People deal with rejection, abandonment, you know, feeling forsaken. All these things are soul wounds that come from athlete experiences that God wants to heal us from. With his fatherhood, he's telling us he is our covering. We have a covering. We're not without a covering. We're not orphans. We have a covering, but we come into that covering through this concept of adoption. We have to recognize it. Acknowledge it. We have to confess it. We have to ask God to give us revelation of what he's done, of what he's given us, what he's granted us, so that religious formalism doesn't rob us of the experience of his fatherhood and all the benefits that come with it. And many people think they're not, they're not religious. But if you're not in intimacy with God, there is you're, there is a level of religion that you are in because you're not enjoying a certain level of fellowship with God. And even if you do, there are always ways that we can improve that relationship by growing in knowledge of God as our father. So communicating with God as our father. It, it, it, it's, it's, it means a lot. The approach means a lot. The approach is basically coming into the right covenant and kicking, you know, it's like opening the door, access of knowing him as father, access of receiving from him as a child, and that's why Jesus. Was sure to start with that because he knew that he was talking to people who had been raised in religion and he was teaching them. Do not approach God as pagans like the rest of the world. Do not come as somebody who's performing and waiting for God's favor through your performance, come as a child and receive from him as a child. And so we must appro, uh, uh, we must follow the approved means for children to approach God as opposed to pagan. We must come through the channel of Christ, the spirit of adoption, and in the right spirit and with the right address. So it's through the channel of Christ. Like I said, it's through the channel of Christ, and I I talked about this in our previous, um, season. I talked about coming through the right channel. So now I wanna say a few things for the sake of time, about what it means to know the father's love, what it means to know the father's love, knowing the father's love, and how that changes us. Now, one key thing is in romance eight, this is really from Romans eight, romance eight. The contrast between the, the, the spirit of adoption. The contrast between the spirit of adoption and the the spirit of slavery to fear tells us that we are dealing with love versus fear. So the knowing God as father deals with a lot of our insecurities. Knowing the father's love frees us from slavery to fear. The apostle Paul explained in Romans eight, five, he said, you, we have not received a spirit of bondage again to fear, but we have received the spirit of adoption by whom we cry, Abba, father. Now the spirit of bondage to fear is the spirit behind legalism. It's the spirit that of religion. It's the spirit that will use the same Bible against you. If you don't know God as father and wear you out and make you feel like you're not good enough, make you feel like you need to perform, you need to live up to God's standards without God's grace and you think you're in grace, but that, but you're not because there's this, you are constantly pressured and burdened and under accusation that you're not good enough. There's some guilt. You did this. You didn't say this. You didn't do this right. You didn't do as if we are saved by our own righteousness and it's not the righteousness of God that changes our nature. So this is something that people deal with and the deliverance from the spirit. So you may be, it's like, it's like this. You're delivered from Egypt like the Israelites were, but God needs to take the programming of Egypt out of you so that you can inherit your promise so that, so he does. Through our process, through the wilderness, in our wilderness seasons, he deals with, you know, all the, the struggles we go through, the trials, the temptations. He really uses them to take fear out of us, to prune us out of fear. All these fears, fear of money, fear of people, fear of death, fear of sickness, fear of all, all sorts of fears people live with, fear of rejection, fear of all sorts of things, you know. That we live with, that God needs to deal with so that we can be truly free and at peace so that we can be secure not just outside of Egypt, but within in our enema. There's a harmony that's within with between spirit, soul, and body. There's internal harmony. So when we're talking about receiving God as father, approaching God as Father, fellowshiping with God as father, coming into Revelation. The father's love. It is really about deliverance. We're talking about knowing God in a way that sets you free from fear. The fear of punishment, the fear of of of bondage, the fear of death, the fear of judgment, all sort of fears. The Bible says fear has torment. In First John four 18, fear torments. People, you know, anxieties, torments, people, anxieties will bring torment. They, they, you can't take your mind off of stuff. You're just constantly worrying. Anxious. It's a, it's a fear. A fear that's not even real. But you are, you are afraid of what will happen and it has torment and people have tormenting dreams, nightmares, all sorts of tormenting issues, you know, because of fear. And so the Bible says that the perfect love of God drives out fear. It. It's such a strong language, violent language, it drives out, but you need that love to come in. You need a, an understanding. It really starts with knowing the cross, knowing what Jesus did, because it unveils your eyes to see that, wow, God would not go through all that if he didn't love me. There's something that happens to you when you study the gospel. But there's also something that happens when God unveils your eyes to encounter his love in the everyday moment, to encounter his presence, the deep, rich love there is a real reality of God's love. When I was first saved, that's what saved me. God opened my spiritual senses to feel the strong unjudgmental, sweet love fatherhood that he has for me. And it changed my life. Love is the strongest weapon according to verse Corinthians 13, because love is actually what changes us. So the more we see of the father, the more we become like him, the more we become loving people. But when we try to be just religious and just focusing more on the doings and the keeping the formalities and the even just disciplines, it really has a way of robing us from devotion. And God is after devotion, he's after hot devotion. Fear shifts our focus. To keep on external formalities, to be made righteous instead of believing in what Jesus did for us and following his lead to live righteously to receive an impartation of God's righteousness. So fear will shift your focus, but love will bring you to what God is after, which is the fruit of love, which are the fruits of the spirit. It's actually manifestations of one fruit. You know, love, self-control, long suffering, all those things are manifestations of the Holy Spirit's. Um, nature, God's divine nature. So the father's love frees us from fear, insecurity, rejection, and abandonment, which is a, a big one, a really big one. The god's really highlighted to me that this is something that the body of Christ struggles with. This is something that. We need to, I, I would actually love to do a, a study on just focusing on that because it, it is, it is something that tries to rob our relationship and our destiny, and so we need to deal with that. We need to break agreement with every sense of abandonment. Every entertaining ideas, though somehow God is not with us, especially when we go through trials, you know, it's, uh, feelings of rejection, feeling that nobody wants us. God doesn't want us feeling isolated, feeling, you know, people may reject us, but God doesn't want us to feel rejected because his love is enough. He is our sufficiency as scripture says, Paul said, he's my sufficiency. And God wants us to be content with his presence because out of his presence, so long as he's present everything we need. He will supply it. It we know we have access. We know it's there. So the presence is what is what we need to go after. So in this priesthood and in talking about growing closer to God, in fellowship, we're really talking about ways to cultivate the presence of God and practice the presence of God because it's his presence that brings salvation. The Bible says where the spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty. If we don't come into. Our identity as children and grow into mature sons, we will be like orphans and orphans. They, they have, it's like, you know, meshed is a great example in the Bible because meshed is an example of somebody who wasn't just an orphan, but who was disabled and, and it's, and it's like that, it's like in the spirit, if we don't. Heal from our father, issues with God, we become spiritually disabled. And so romance, no. Hebrews 12 talks about healing those feeble knees that have become feeble because of all the struggles and all the persecution and all the things we're going through that make us feel rejected, abandoned, all those things, you know, that the enemy tries to open, you know, all those wounds he tries to. Create in our soul by attacking us with, with all sorts of issues. And so we need to deal with those things. And it's really through the place of pride in Hebrews 12 talks about that strengthen those ha hands that hang low and those needs. So, and make straight paths. So we, we have to come into pressing into God to really change our hearts and to deal with insecurities and vulnerabilities like that and soul wounds. So that we can heal, we can heal and enjoy the fellowship and the covenant that we has for us. And to come into feeling accepted. So I'm going to end the session, but I do wanna say more about our father in, in subsequent teachings because I by no means finished or exhausted what I wanted to say here. You know, and like I said, I could do a whole teaching on just abandonment because it's such a big one. Um, but what I want to leave you with is an exercise. It's an exercise really to ask you a couple questions and to give you an exercise. It's really, you know, to, to ask yourself how do you approach God? Do you treat God like a distant father or do you treat him as a caring father? Do you, do you approach God as a pagan or as a child? If you do approach God as a father, do you have soul wounds that are affecting your walk with God and how you're relating to God and your faith, and maybe even your hope in God? I want you to do an exercise where you write down a decree based on your identity as a child of God. You write down maybe five statements that you want to anchor your soul in. You are not, and not just negative statements, but positive statements based on scripture. So you have to do some research on that. One is that I'm a child of God. I'm not abandoned. God is my father. One is that I'm, I'm a child of God. I'm not rejected. I'm accepted in the beloved. Now there are vest is for all of these statements, and another one would be, I'm a child of God. I have the righteousness of God. I have the righteous nature of God through Christ. I'm a child of God. I am not. I am not forsaken. God is with me. He's promised that he'll never leave me, not forsaken me. I am a child of God. God's grace I bounce towards me so that. In every situation I have more than I need to do what he's called me to do. It's by grace through faith and not my works. And so I want you to ponder these statements and try to write a decree based on that. Talk to God and ask him, are there soul wounds you're carrying that you're not even aware of? Are there attitudes that you have? Because somewhere in your thinking based on life experience, you are dealing with rejection. Because rejection is not just an attitude. It's not just a spirit that sometimes you have to cast out and break agreement with and cast out and, and simply drive out of your life, but it's also a place you have to come out of. You have to come out of that place. Through change of identity, you come out of that old mindset, that old nature. You renew your mind to come out of that place. To journey into Christ. To come into Christ because it's in him. We have redemption, so you have to take the identity of Christ because his redemptive work swapped places with us so that he took our rejection, our abandonment. Our sense of being forsaken, all those negative things so that we would have his, and based on having his, based on identifying with him as our new life, we get to share the benefits of sonship in God, including his throne. We get to rule in life to the circumstances. Don't reign over us, but we rule of our circumstances. And so I hope this blessed you, and if it did, as always, don't forget to share it. Until next time, I look forward to bringing you the next installment in this series and practice talking to God as father. God bless. Bye. Thank you for listening to On This Rock. We're so glad you joined us and hope you've been encouraged. To connect with our women's ministry, explore live discipleship classes, or support children with disabilities through our Mercy mission. Visit on this rock group.com. You can now find everything we offer there. Until next time, stay rooted in Truth And remember, trade your pebble for the rock of ages.