When we don’t experience the power of the Father’s love, we can find ourselves listening to a counterfeit father. Your enemy knows that if he can get you feeling separated from the power of Father God’s love and goodness, you will be more prone to listening to lies and deception. The adversary will use the empty and unfilled areas of your heart to blast his megaphone of destruction.
This is why experiencing Father God is so important. It sets the foundation for what we listen to in our thoughts. It is a major factor in our ability to distinguish truth from lies.
Take in a survey of what most Christians listen to in their thoughts and you will find the chatterbox of deception, sent by the enemy, to keep people feeling separated from the love that God has for us.
When we are not trained to receive the heart of the Father, we become more open to listening to the father of lies. We will also become more vulnerable to following the lusts that often come along with those lies.
Who is Your Father?
In John 8, Jesus declared who He is as the truth that sets men free, while opening up a dialogue about “father.” His heart was to show them the Father and help them understand their need to know Him.
In response, the religious leaders boasted of their allegiance to Abraham as their father. This is a legitimate statement, as their lineage leads back to that great man of promise. The problem is, they missed the opportunity to know their spiritual Father, who was speaking through His Son; right in front of them.
Like many today, they claimed to know who their father was. When in reality, they had given themselves over to a different father. A counterfeit father had slipped into their lives.
You are of your father the devil…(John 8:44)
While they lived in arrogance as to their fatherly ancestry, they could not recognize the Greater Father represented by the One standing in front of them. They missed who Jesus was, therefore, they missed who their Father could be in their midst.
Your Father, the Devil?
When Jesus says, “Your father is the devil,” he is addressing the source of their thoughts. He is confronting where they got their deceived thinking from. What began with Abraham as their father, should have led them to recognizing Jesus, therefore leading them to understanding their Heavenly Father.
Instead, their legalism and formality blinded them from the grace that was standing before them. Their hearts were veiled from the truth that would set them free. This made them vulnerable to the lies that satan brought.
And most of all, they had no idea that the Father’s heart was at hand.
The Father of Lies
We know that satan is the father of lies, but why do we listen to him? A lot of it comes to down the brokenness that results from not knowing the Father’s love. Without experiencing the Father’s love, we lack a sense of His voice. When we do not have an intimate understanding of our privilege to come before our loving Heavenly Father God as His child, another father comes to lead us a astay.
Satan is a deadbeat father, with no life to offer. Yet because of brokenness, we listen to him anyway. The void in our hearts has been left unfilled. Without the Father’s love in our lives:
- We give into a counterfeit identity.
- We listen to counterfeit thoughts.
- We get pulled into counterfeit affections.
- We look for belonging in all the wrong places.
The religious people of the day thought they carried the ultimate spirituality. When in reality, they were filled with deception.
We often view the Pharisees of the Bible with such disdain and contempt, but we have many of the same problems today. Countless believers shrug their shoulders and boast, “oh yes, I know the Father.” Yet their lives do not reflect that. Their unhealed brokenness is growing weeds in their life, yet they cannot see it, because they are blinded to their emptiness. Their lives show they are listening to the father of lies.
Brokenness from Not Being Fathered
Whether or not you realize it, the most influential thoughts are those that arrive from your father references. That’s because you were made to hear from your earthly father, so you can learn how to relate to your Heavenly Father through what he taught you. In fact, your father’s voice or lack thereof will affect the frequency and tone of what Father God sounds like to you.
I don’t care how many great sermons you hear, how many times you read the Bible or pray. Your unaddressed brokenness will make you prone to following what the father of lies says to you. Unless you allow your Heavenly Father to heal you and fill you with HIs loving affection, you will get pulled into the lusts of the flesh, the lust of the eyes and the pride of life.
[shareable]Your unaddressed brokenness will make you prone to following what the father of lies says to you. [/shareable]
Will power doesn’t defeat the enemy. Getting healed and restored in the Father’s love fills the empty spaces of the heart. When this happens, the temptations and lies of the enemy have no place to land. You know in your heart that there is no life in those directions.
Remember, when we feel separated from intimacy with Father God, another father comes to as a counterfeit voice and influence.
It’s important that you know that satan is working overtime to capitalize on unhealed brokenness to steal, kill and destroy the life of God from having its work in your life. He will block you from experiencing the Father’s love or he will tempt you into finding life from other sources. He will do everything he can to get you to find life from anywhere else than what Jesus came to bring.
Fill Your Heart
The only way we can listen to the Father’s heart is to engage Him in His goodness and love in relationship. The life of Christ shows us what living with the Father looks like. When we get filled with the Father’s love, approval and validation, nothing else will do. In fact, the Father’s desires become your desires.
Otherwise we will follow a counterfeit. Whatever we listen to, becomes the “fathering” voice in our life.
You are of your father the devil, and the desires of your father you want to do. He was a murderer from the beginning, and does not stand in the truth, because there is no truth in him. When he speaks a lie, he speaks from his own resources, for he is a liar and the father of it. John 8:44 (NKJV)
Healing Your Father Reference
I want to make something very clear: Satan will use your poor father references to speak lies and lead you into counterfeit desires.
Many of the reasons why we have blocks and hindrances in our journey is because they’re filled with lies. Strongholds have infiltrated our thinking that have kept us in toxic ways of living.
The problem is not that you need to get stronger. You need to get filled.
When a man gets filled with the love of God, he can resist the temptation of pornography, because he knows there is no life there. Plus, he’s filled with what he needs anyway–the love of His true Heavenly Father!
Fear has no room when love has had its work. Doubt and unbelief can’t hold on when we have been loved. Self-hate and low self-esteem can’t hang on when love has its perfecting work in our hearts.
The Solution
You cannot combat satan’s lies with willpower. You need to make an exchange and step into being a son/daughter under your Heavenly Father. That’s what Jesus paid for–an unhindered love relationship with the Father.
Satan has every lie that he will throw your way; some white lies, bold-face lies and other lies that are really hard to detect. He will even use facts against you. This is how he often gets your attention. Facts are not the truth that sets men free, but a list of accusatory information that keep you bound to a broken past and a disempowered present.
The only answer is to fill yourself with what your Father in heaven says about you. So it’s time we start by letting Him heal our broken hearts and build in us what He says about us as His sons and daughters.