Baptism of Love by Leif Hetland

Author:Leif Hetland
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2013-03-09T16:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER V

The Revelation Of Father God’s Approval

Christianity is different from other world religions. The others are all based on what man can do for God, while Christianity is all about God reaching out and doing everything needed to save man from sin and condemnation. The followers of false religions are forced to carry a load too heavy just so they can be proven worthy of the crumbs that fall from their master’s table. But our Father in heaven has already demonstrated His unconditional love for you and me when He made a way to reconcile man to God while we were still rebels and sinners. It was a world-changing revelation.

Two thousand years ago another radical statement was made when Father God descended on the Jordan River to introduce His Son to the world. Even though Jesus had no track record to speak of, the Father said He was well pleased with His son. The carnal mind cannot comprehend affirmation without accomplishment, but we do not need to prove ourselves if we know we are already approved.

If a person has not yet experienced Father’s Baptism of Love, then he or she is always under pressure to perform, to excel, and to succeed. We do this in order to earn God’s approval. It is an acquired trait after a lifetime of receiving pain instead of love. We carry the emotional scars that came via words spoken by our earthly fathers. Many times a child will do his best to please his father, but, instead of affirmation, he receives criticism. This is a phenomenon we can call “father-wounding.”

We talked about father-hunger in the previous chapters. This is distinguished by the actions of an absentee father or an emotionally detached dad who has no time for his children and family. Father-wounding, on the other hand, is the withholding of approval. In this section, we will see that children are not only in need of their father’s embrace and emotional nurture, but they also long for their father’s approval.

Approval Must not be Given on the Basis of Merit, but Love

My dog will bark, jump, roll on the floor, and follow me around just to receive a furious rubbing of his fur. It is often times noisy and messy when this pet of mine tries to get my attention. His relentlessness is due to the constant need for my approval. If an animal longs for approval, how much more do people, especially children who look up to their fathers? Yet often, instead of the thumbs-up sign, we receive a thumbs-down gesture, reducing our perceived value even lower.

There may have been times when you gave your report card to your father. Your grades were good and you expected some form of congratulatory remark for all the hard work you had put into your studies. However, you did not receive anything of that sort—no embrace, no reward. Instead, your father told you that you could do better. It was a subtle way of rejecting you, although he may not have perceived it as such.

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