When people ask me about my healing journey, one of the mindsets I emphasize over and again is something very simple: I went back to the beginning and started over.
I realized that in my struggle, my issues were leading me back to the foundation, the fundamentals that I skipped over or never learned to experience in the first place.
It helped me tremendously when I cried out to God, “I know nothing! Take me back to the foundation and do a renovation in my life!”
So my encouragement to you is simple. Stop chasing symptoms. Stop hoping that “one issue will go away” so you can get back to your life.
There is no getting back to your life. There is a new life awaiting you. But it requires a rebuilt foundation.
God’s mercy awaits you today. In fact, His mercy is brand new this morning, waiting to love you into a new chapter.
But stop trying to preserve life “as is.”
It is time to start over.
A Fresh Start Today
When Jesus arrives to awaken and heal your heart, He first begins by offering you a new heart to live from. It’s time for a fresh heart.
I will give you a new heart . . . Ezekiel 36:26
The power of the cross and resurrection provide us with an opportunity to receive a new start with a new heart. God ushers in a heavenly makeover. He’s basically saying, “We have to start this all over, right from the beginning.” God does not build on top of our broken upbringing; He starts us over so we can experience a whole new tutelage in living as a loved child.
That is why receiving Christ is called the “born again” experience. You go back to infancy and grow up again. This helps set the stage for what a heart connected life with Christ and the Father can be.
But how many believers have a solid reference for what it means to be loved as God’s child? It has become so cliché that it is often skipped over as a subject which needs no further attention.
Quite the opposite. Being loved as God’s child needs to be continually revisited. In fact, we will spend the rest of our lives learning to experience the Father’s love, expressed through His Son, Jesus Christ. A life from the heart is a continual journey of discovering what it means to be unconditionally loved as a child, by a perfect Father in heaven.
Let’s Go Back
When God gets a hold of our hearts, He initiates a heavenly reboot, so don’t be surprised in your healing journey when God says, “Let’s go back to the beginning.” Although this step seems like a setback in your journey, it is actually a giant leap forward in God’s eyes.
God will often take us back to revisit Kingdom subjects that have become religious rituals, with little impact on our hearts. Sometimes it can be as simple as revisiting your born-again experience.
Living as a believer is more than just giving mental assent, saying a nice prayer or participating in religious duties. Our journey with God starts with a believing heart and continues as a heart journey. Many modern-day believers lose track when their Christian life becomes a mass list of sacred tasks and impressive theology they can quote with their minds, but have lost connection within their heart.
The greatest way we can reset our spiritual journey is to get back to the simplicity of believing and connecting from our hearts.
. . . if you confess with your mouth the Lord Jesus and believe in your heart that God has raised Him from the dead, you will be saved. For with the heart one believes unto righteousness, and with the mouth confession is made unto salvation. Romans 10:9-10
Becoming God’s Child
Behold what manner of love the Father has bestowed on us, that we should be called children of God! 1 John 3:1
One of the greatest treasures we have as believers is the opportunity to live as a loved child of our Father in heaven. Yet in the decades of rolling up my sleeves and working with the hearts of people, this precept is more a theory than reality for many. In fact, most of the battles believers face come out of feeling disconnected from the Father’s love and not knowing who they are in their identity.
So, before you are tempted to rush and read on, honestly ask yourself, “Do I really know what it means to live as a dearly loved child by my Father in heaven?
Am I able to connect to that love right now?
Do I live out of a confident identity as a son or daughter of God?”
Experiencing the Father’s love is everything. His love tells you who you are and builds the confidence you need to live it out. A careful examination of the battles that believers face show there is a war over what love means and a fight to keep you from walking in the full expression of your eternal identity.
Sons and Daughters
When we believe and receive Christ into our lives, we are given a brand-new identity: we are now sons and daughters of Father God. Anything else is just a cheap counterfeit. We are no longer just natural people with biological parents. We are spiritual sons and daughters of God. He is now our Father. We are now stamped as His dearly loved and treasured children!
The Spirit Himself bears witness with our spirit that we are children of God…Romans 8:16
When God speaks to the hearts of believers, He communicates to us as sons and daughters, not as orphans or slaves. Sonship is a key foundation to a relationship with God because it establishes a true knowing of who we are. It also tunes our hearts into how God speaks to us. We cannot experience fruitful transformation apart from the relationship of a Father to a son.
So, it is important to ask yourself, “Do I really know what it feels like to be totally and unconditionally loved by my Father in heaven? Am I immersed in His approval, validation and acceptance?”
These questions identify a key place where satan attacks believers the most:
- Keep God’s children from connecting to the Father’s love.
- Prevent believers from walking in the power of their true identity.
People all over the planet are in a minute by minute battle over whether or not they are loved and accepted. For many of you, God wants to take you back to what it really means to be loved by Him. You will also need to strip off all the added layers that have piled up on your identity and revisit the simplicity of being loved as God’s child. It’s possible that Jesus needs to take you into His lap as He did those children and help you to realize, “this is the Kingdom of heaven” (Matthew 19:14).
True Inside-Out Change
Love and identity are everything, because they set the template for all that God will do in your life. You no longer hide in shame, because you know His love and grace is present to work with you through every issue of your life. You learn to see that trials are a season for your relationship with Him to be strengthened. Your trust is empowered, because you know your Father in heaven is maturing you at every stage of life. With God’s love imbedded in your heart, hope is strengthened and your faith builds confidence.
Transformation can be a waste of time if we are not building it on the Father’s love. You will spend your life chasing symptoms or attempting to “will” yourself into change by performance-based living. You will also pile up a list of spiritual disciplines, while still feeling empty.
God wants to get to the root system of your life, but this cannot happen effectively, unless you know you are loved by Him. Love sets the foundation of trust, so that as He leads you into transformation, you know in your heart that all His motives towards you are good and for a good future.
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