If you ask Christians what God seeks to do in the last days, you would get a variety of responses and perspectives. Most of their answers would probably be great truths.
But would the heart of Father God be mentioned? Would His love, which was manifested through Jesus Christ, be emphasized?
Believe it or not, a major work of the last days work involves the Father’s heart being manifested in the earth.
When Jesus proclaimed and demonstrated the Gospel of the Kingdom, He brought a revelation of the Father’s heart with Him everywhere. Anytime you saw Jesus act, you could say, “Wow, that is what the Father is like.”
The religious people of the day thought Abraham was their father. They didn’t realize a greater call of God the Father was invading their world. In fact, because they didn’t recognize the heart of the Father flowing through Christ, they were more vulnerable to listening to the counterfeit father; the father of lies.
The same is true for us when we lack a revelation of Father God’s love for us.
The Heart of the Father in the Last Days
The Father’s heart is meant to flow right down to how we process relationships. The work of Christ was not only meant to reconcile us to Father God, but to reconstruct how we do relationships with each other.
Malachi prophesied this relational healing when he proclaim the day of the Lord, speaking to the end days, he says:
Behold, I will send you Elijah the prophet
Before the coming of the great and dreadful day of the Lord.
And he will turn
The hearts of the fathers to the children,
And the hearts of the children to their fathers,
Lest I come and strike the earth with a curse.
Malachi 4:5-6 NKJV
Before the arrival of Christ, you hear God’s heart of what He wants to do. The dreadful day of the Lord often cues people to go down all kinds of dreadful pathways of thought.
But pay attention to God’s heart. Before that day, he wants to restore the hearts of fathers and sons. His goal is relationship restoration.
As the days move closer to the return of Christ, God’s heart is that we know Him as a Father, and that this experience translate right into our relationships–that fathers and sons, mothers and daughters be reconciled with each other.
The Key to Relationship Restoration
Restoration of relationship really begins with healing the father relationship; not only the fathers taking their place, but children coming back and being able to have healthy whole relationship.
Now, there are two dimensions to this that are important.
First, this begins with you understanding Father God’s heart for you and experiencing His love for you; where you are able to interact with Him confidently as a son or daughter.
But this also ties into your relationship with your earthly father, because we initially relate to Father God through the lens of our earthly father. We often need our father lens healed, so we can experience God more clearly.
So you have to ask, “What does father mean to me?”
God wants to restore what father even means to us, because His ultimate desire is to grow and mature us into sonship.
It’s amazing that God’s picture of relationship is family. The body of Christ is called to be a family, filled with fathers and mothers that know how to encourage and edify others in the House of God.
But we first need to learn to be sons; growing in relationship with our Father.
This fathering work will teach us that transformation happens best in relationship, not in a classroom or in lectures. Life transformation is seen best in a healthy father-son relationship.
[shareable]Transformation happens best in relationship.[/shareable]
This doesn’t mean you should walk around trying to be other people’s fathers. It means you need to learn what it’s like to carry a heart of father towards other people. When you do that, you see people as God sees them.
[shareable]When you carry a father’s heart towards other people, you see people as God does.[/shareable]
When the Heart of Father God is Not Manifesting
If this father restoration doesn’t manifest in our lives, Malachi says the land is gonna get hit with a curse. Could it be that a lot of the destruction that we see: the sin that we witness, the limitations we watch in people’s lives, the discouragement, the depression, the heaviness, the oppression we see happening is because the Father’s heart is missing from people’s lives?
Jesus called out what was going to happen in the last days as a result of people not experiencing the pure love of the Father. In Matthew 24:12, He said, “ and because lawlessness will abound, the love of many will grow cold.”
Lawless simply means without law or moral restraint. What we often need in our country is the heart of a father who brings loving direction and correction, yet with an untainted love that makes you feel safe.
But when the father’s heart is not present, people end up doing whatever they want. They are left to their own devices, with no direction or compass. People will do what they want to do, not matter what you tell them. There’s a loss of guiding ethics, a sense of morality and loss of righteousness.
Whenever you see this manifestation in any arena, it’s due to the lack of a father’s heart in the midst. The sin that we see growing in the land gains momentum when the Father’s heart is not present.
Love Growing Cold
Because of this, Jesus said, “the love of many will grow cold.”
Knowledge may increase, but love will grow cold. People will get head smarter and heart number. Offense will be on the rise, betrayal will occur more often, hatred will increase and love will decrease when the heart of the Father has not been manifesting.
People are withdrawing into isolation more. They are withdrawing from people; withdrawing from relationship. They are isolating to their televisions or social media, where we can interact, but it’s in a controlled way, where we can keep all our walls up. It’s becoming more hostile. On top of it, we don’t have to face-to-face as much any longer.
There’s a coldness. People cut off relationships so easily. They’ll cut off somebody they’ve been in relationship with for decades. Why? Because love is growing cold.
The Power of the Father’s Heart
Why is the love growing cold? Because there’s lawlessness there.
What holds righteousness together? When there’s a guide of authority.
And what’s the greatest guide of authority? A father.
In every home, there is a need for a father to be present. When he’s not present, for whatever reason, it can leave room for lawlessness and the work of love growing cold. When the father’s presence isn’t there, lawlessness wants to rear its head.
The good news is that God desires to be the Father to the fatherless. He is seeking to send people in the name of the Lord to stand in the gap for hearts that do not carry his love.
A father demonstrates empowerment. He preserves righteousness and he keeps love alive in the land.
So if Malachi says a curse will hit the land if fathers and sons do not come together, then imagine the healing that can happen when this healing work does happen?
What kind of healing can occur in your family, church and community if the heart of the Father is demonstrated?