Fathering Archives - The Paraclete's Hammer

K.I.S.S.ing the Apostles: Or The Only Father We Will Ever Need

2 February 20247 February 2024 by theparacleteshammer, posted in Apostle, Fathering, Fivefold Ministry Gifts

Some thoughts, here. Dropping the bomb.

Looking forward to the responses.

I have seen multiple people claim they know what the apostolic is.

I typically either smile and nod, and tell them what they want to hear, or I roll my eyes, cringe for the moment, and smile and move along.

And the reality is that, typically, because of the counterfeit, because of legitimacy, and because of the craving for real power or authority, apart from principles, reality, and cause-and-effect, between 130 and 185 percent of what claims to be the apostolic is not.

So, kissing it here (K.I.S.S), let us be simple.

The frame, before G-d sends the Isaac, the enemy will send the Ishmael. In place of the releasing and liberating apostolic, comes the apostolic overseer and covering…..

And there is a lot of mixture, in the church, of what claims to be the apostolic. However, the truth is most of the “apostlolic” is really et up with the Antichrist spirit.

We read Ephesians 4:11-12, and we hear what the Fivefold Ministry, is for “to equip the saints for the work of the ministry”, and we FAIL ruthlessly to explain what SHOULD happen after that equipping. Paul mentions “equipping the saints for the work of ministry”, and we FAIL to build out that phrase, “the work of ministry”.

In Practice, following the precedent of the Shepherding Movement, and much of the Ruler Season (1901-2004), with its obsession with protocol and hierarchy and order and systems (to say nothing about whether or not those systems were ever truly life-giving), too much of the Fivefold was concerned with controlling other believers, due to woundedness and the lust for power.

What ultimately resulted was we allow illegitimated “covering” types to equip and then ANNEX.

If you want to know few of us trust when you say “the fivefold is the only biblical ecclesiology (form of church government)”, or “only the fivefold is the proper form of leadership”, well, this is one reason why.

Typically, whomever institutes the fivefold in a place installs themselves at the top and calls themselves the apostle over the organization.

And, unfortunately, in practicing that ministry this way, we have rejected the implied exposition that pairs the reality of Ephesians 4:11-12 with the longer ending of Mark 16 and Matthew 28:18-20.

Make disciples, teaching them to observe what I have instructed you, and lo I am with you until the end of the age.

Preach the Gospel to every creature, and send them forth with the signs following.

Here, Yeshua NEVER commanded anyone to control another human.

…NEVER commanded anyone to limit another or shrink another….

…and NEVER commanded anyone to subject what He told them to do to another person who was supposed to act as an intermediary…

On the one hand, the doctrine of covering, natch, will lead to this control. On the other hand, the Great Commission and the accounts of Luke 21 and the work of Acts lead naturally to one thing: freedom. A free people walking directly with their King, and developing into the leaders they were made to be, will increase the real, Isaacite (as opposed to the counterfeit, Ishmaelite) apostolic. It enables rather than disables.

Put differently, IN THE WORDS OF JOHN WIMBER, we equip, and then, as a result of the balance of the biblical text, RELEASE those people, and allow them to do what HE told them to do. Build a platform under them for their success and fulfillment.

Counsel is one thing.

Control is another.

….no, not allowing…..that word choice is terrible.

Allow me to share something.

I want to share part of my testimony here.

Near the end of my first marriage, when we were trying to salvage it, my first wife, who cheated on me, made a disturbing statement.

“I am a strong godly woman, and I AM ALLOWING DAVID TO BECOME THE HEAD OF THIS HOUSEHOLD.”

That statement disrupted not only my spirit, but also the spirit of Jeff, who is my adopted father and was present.

Even allowing someone, permitting someone, releasing someone, loosing someone is inadequate.

We are responsible to REALIZE and ACKNOWLEDGE that G-d designed humanity to be free, and to crave liberty, and whether or not we permit or allow it, they will move toward that direction with whatever tools they have, see, or realize are on hand.

The Book of Numbers in the Torah acknowledges this reality, because in that book, G-d shows us how a loving Father takes a full nation of only slaves, and begets a nation of sons, within one generation.

When freedom is the direction of a people who have gotten a taste of liberty, lesser structures will not satisfy. To wit, the structure embodied by the phrase “apostolic oversight” is risky when applied to free people, because it lends itself to structures that push people toward ring-kissing, boot-licking, and being subjected to the grand poobah who is more capable of hearing G-d for you than you are for yourself. It creates a spiritual welfare system that forces us to depend on a priestly caste.

That is a caste system we set up. And the priests, the Brahmins who serve their Shiva, sadly end up destroying the flock rather than nurturing it.

That’s what false apostles look like.

Now, describing the true variety.

Apostles primarily, biblically, because they establish new works, look at foundations. They do not sit at the top. They are muddy and grubby, and considering the roots of a thing. They are not bishops or political masters.

They go out and do. They might understand heaven’s blueprint. But they are most obsessed with establishing the kingdom where it is not rightly established, and pointing out obstacles to that establishment.

Believers were made to be powerful and dangerous, and walk hand-in-hand with the King and their Father. Your Father wants to be your first father, ahead of any man or woman.

Second, apostles enable an enviroment where real fathering can take place.

And in the words of Arthur Burk, let me ask this question to a fatherless generation, that includes myself.

What resources does G-d the Father lack with which to father us HIMSELF?

Anything?

Does He lack anything? No.

Now, is it ~~fair~~ just that we do not have access to parents or figures willing to parent us? Perhaps.

However, it is better for us if we are able to receive G-d as father leading us before we engage with another person, because that person can turn into someone we mooch from.

We were not made to mooch from them.

And if G-d in Exodus and Numbers are a blueprint for how He deals with His people.

If His first revelation to pagan humanity was as Father (Israel is my SON, MY FIRSTBORN. LET MY SON GO!, IF YOU DO NOT, I WILL KILL YOUR FIRSTBORN.)….

If He intended to break the slave mentalty by sequentially leading a generation of slaves into the wilderness so then HE HIMSELF could transform them into a generation of sons….

And that was Old Covenant, and we are under the New Covenant…

…then why would we expect Him to do anything less than amping up and intensifying the process of fathering us Himself?

He deals with us as sons, and not as slaves.

He deals with us via connection and intimacy in this season, NOT protocol.

He works at fathering us Himself.

It’s not about obedience. It is about intimacy and connction and family.

And we in the apostolic were made to foster the environment so permeated by love and kindness and justice and mercy and grace and tenderness, that it enables believers to connect more intensely with THE FATHER with HIS SONS. And yes, ladies, if I as a man can be the bride of Christ, then you also can as a woman can be the son of G-d. Congratulations, life is uncomfortable for everyone.

But it makes people uncomfortable to allow He HIMSELF to father, because we look for Him to send someone with skin on.
He never promises that.

He only promises that He, as the ultimate Father will, together with the Son, make His home with us.

The apostolic does run toward fathering, and toward foundations, but all of this is to push for a twofold reality.

Apostles, put in their right place, seek to foster an environment, free of obstruction, where the parts of the engine glide past one another, much like the function of motor oil, so that what comes naturally from them is the fostering of an envionment that enables the connection and flow to be established, and happen more easily, between G-d and man. It’s not about the dude or chick that is anointed. It’s not about them protecting you and me. It is about our obsession that you meet with HIM. It’s about Him meeting with His kids. Personal relationship that is intense and intimate. For the only covering that matters, with no respect to the predatory Shepherding Movement, is the one provided by G-d the Father.

As to the Redemptive Gifts, the Redemptive Gift that makes the best Father is the Gift of Ruler/Judge/Deliverer. The Principle of Freedom that leads slaves out of bondage into freedom. Dominic Torretto is one such example of the Ruler who seeks to father well.

And his dad wanted that for his sons, even though the way he went about it was kind of messed up. You still see the fathering in this vision here when Dom is underwater, before the mother, his bride, Letty, the Prophet rescues him.

And the Prophet says to the Ruler, “none of it is worth a thing if I lose you.”

Apostles fade into the background while Dad Himself meets with His kids and the minutes just slip away as the intimacy slips away, and people begin to hear G-d more clearly for themselves. They know the Father heart, and yearn for others to have that, not to control those hearts, but to release and send out those hearts as they themselves have been.

So, whatever else has been written about the apostle, if it

Would that all the people were prophets…..capable of hearing G-d for themselves.

Moses cried out for the complete and dangerous liberation of people to pursue G-d for themselves to a place of full freedom and flow of revelation and vision and understanding (what constitutes the prophetic) in freedom.

Yet, here we are under the New Covenant, looking for apostles to be covering and our daddy’s and control us and lead us into further bondage because we may have rejected the fruit of the spirit of self-control.

Maybe we need fewer of these “apostles” and more connection with Father Himself. As people who walk in the principles, we are more than capable (Romans 8:37) of engaging personally with Him in His love and seeing that connection bring a multiplication in all arenas of our lives, causing a flourishing. Sons build and fight. Part of His fathering of us, and part of the DNA of a son, is that we learn how to build; we accrue, manage, and transform raw materials into products that are useful for the agenda of the kingdom; and we learn how to fight and who to fight. When we subject that organically life-giving connection to the caprice of another person’s discernment, as too many lived examples have shown, we retard or destroy the fullness of life, shrinking our supply, and making our spiritual life unsustainable.

This is now how we were designed, in order for the Kingdom to flourish and us to flourish, we must be free.

And G-d is the one who will hold us accountable, per about 5 referneces.

Why does the wicked renounce God

and say in his heart, “You will not call to account”?

Psalm 10:13

I tell you, on the day of judgment people will give account for every careless word they speak,

Matt 12:36

So then ^zeach of us will give an account of himself to God.

Rom 14:32

And no creature is hidden from his sight, but all are ^cnaked and exposed to the eyes of him to whom we must give account.

Heb 4:13

but they will give account to him who is ready ^lto judge the living and the dead.

1 Pet 4:5

We are responsible to be free, with the King at our side as our bridegroom., and G-d as our Father before all others.

40 years ago, when I needed a Father, it was Yeshua who introduced me to the reality of true fathering by offering that chance to be fathered by him, and in the ensuing decades of coverings doing a really bad job of fathering, many to the point of abuse, He never once left my side as He walked with love surrounding me. And Just over a year ago, the L-rd used a woman of G-d to connect me to the Father Himself. And she is one of the most important people in my life. And this last year, I have had the honor to see survivors grow in that connection. And THAT is my favorite thing in the world.

One problem, however, is that His offer to father goes unreceived, because so many want a person on this earth in this fallen world to take on that responsibility. And that is not what He has designed sons for. He designed us so he could be with us.

And that connection point, process, and moment is what we in the real apostolic live for. Period. On stronger-than-the-gates-of-hell foundations, we seek for others to connect with Father Himself.

And the ministry of the real apostolic gets ignored in favor of this Ishmaelite, lesser-than, weak substitute. We can and we must do better.

Just some thoughts.

How G-d Wounds and Then Heals a Mercy, Part 2

30 April 202330 April 2023 by theparacleteshammer, posted in Design, Fathering, Inner Healing, Redemptive Gifts

I was going to go with a post on the Teacher, but then something struck me from the Marvel Cinematic Universe, and so I had to run with it. So, here goes…

A Bit More On the Mercy From the MCU, and Then, I Promise We Will Get To the Teacher

Of course, I had to go here for a bit, because there is more than I wanted to say about the Mercy, given the material on the gift keeps bubbling up. So, because I analyze the RG’s in pop culture, there is a significant buildup of material that naturally flows. So, here goes…

Yes….the kid is a Mercy….and had the Exhorter for a surrogate/adoptive father…..

And his wound? It’s being presented with the question, “are you enough without the crutches, and the people, and the relationships, and the tricks, and the gifts, and the resources, and everything that is not the L-rd Himself who must alone stand guard over your heart without any additions?”

Because if you aren’t enough without the suit, then you’ll never be enough with the suit.”

When we first meet Peter in the MCU (Captain America: Civil War), we see as a boy with serious confidence deficit. He hides himself from those who love him and blames himself for the bad things that happen around him. In Homecoming and then Far From Home, we come to an individual with not just problems with self-confidence, but also serious legitimacy issues. From Civil War to Homecoming and Avengers: Infinity War and Endgame, there was a deep internal struggle with both his identity, place, and purpose. He did not see himself for what Tony saw in him, even though it took Tony some time to come around to embracing Peter’s inherent value and design, and to father him effectively.

But eventually confidence bloomed and grew in Peter. This deep well took a hit when Tony died. With his father figure gone, he had to develop a different source, and dig a different well.

Unfortunately, this very negative belief about himself that he wasn’t good enough or strong enough to fill Tony’s shoes, led him to give up the resources that Tony gave to him to someone he thought could be trusted. Following that, Beck toyed with him and, because of Beck’s possession of Stark Tech, he was able to fool Peter into questioning the fabric of reality.

Though it was never about filling Tony’s shoes, but filling and walking in his own shoes, and flowing in his design.

Mercies, when their confidence is deeply tested, usually in the area of relationships, may question reality in the worst way. And this will bring them to a crossroads.

They ultimately must come to a place where they rest in the One Thing that will never abandon them, even when everything crumbles around them: the anchoring point of the nature of G-d, Who Is fiercely loving, completely consistent, will not forsake them, and commited to His covenant.

The wounding comes when they are stripped of those things that once brought them confidence, and the healing comes when their internal structure is so aligned with The One Who Is Perfect Reality that the external world deteriorating impacts them in a decreasing fashion. Dependence on the Bridegroom and no one else, not even family, brothers, sisters, fathers, mothers, spouses, close friends, is what stabilizes the Mercy as they grow through the season that threatens to wound them.

As a result of that, the L-rd pushes the Mercy to adopt a capacity to fix their problems piece-by-piece, without crutches, and as a result, they grow to respond to the following challenge.

As a result, they can either grow into what they were made to do, or shrink back, and their legacy be forgotten or picked up by someone else.

Mercies are going to either bloom or crack under pressure, and as a result of staying the course under pressure, something else comes of them. Something really good.

So, if they bloom in adversity, and they respond to the pressure by leaning hard into the L-rd (Proverbs 3:5-6; Isaiah 54:1-16) instead of relationships governing them, they govern their relationships. And to those relationships they add boundaries, which breaks the spirit of codependency.

Biblically speaking, I think about the confidence John got as a Mercy through living on the Island of Patmos, where he wrote the Revelation and then penned his gospel.

Just some thoughts here…..

Now, onto the Teacher….or not really…but that should be the following post…if I can get off my soapbox long enough to execute…

Blessing 14: September WOR Blessing: Psalm 42:10

22 September 2021 by theparacleteshammer, posted in Blessings, Communication, Exegesis, Fathering, Principles, September Window of Reconcilaiton Blessings: Reconciliation to G-d

Beloved,

I invite your spirit forward to treat with me, regardless of what status it or they are in.

Spirit, I recognize the pain of assault and the trouble that comes when you are traumatized, and the shattering of the human spirit that takes place when ritual abuse occurs.

Spirit, listen to the word of G-d for you for today.

Be still and know I am G-d
Psalm 46:10

Spirit, there is a place following the trauma of a harsh season or following mistreatment of harsh leaders.

G-d can and often might place us in proximity to harsh leaders.

Note what I said versus what I did not say.

Consider the following also, spirit

Although he was a son, he learned obedience by the things he suffered.
Hebrews 5:8 ESV

There may be times when G-d allows you to connect with harsh leaders in order to refine you.

I don’t guarantee it will happen. In fact I hope it doesn’t happen. But in case you end up dealing with a difficult or harsh leader, I want you to remember one thing in the still place following mistreatment.

He is G-d. And He will coach you in very difficult times.

You will also note I did not say G-d sets us under harsh people in order that they would abuse us.

Abuse happens, but I don’t see it as from the hand of G-d. I do however see our response as capable of coming from the hand of G-d.

I bless you following a difficult situation to get really still and to occupy the still place and to lean into the King deeply.

I bless you to walk in stillness and to take advantage of that stillness in order to receive deep clarity.

I bless you in that season to find out how Father wants you to respond and to deeply know Him in intimacy.

I bless you to find deeper intimacy regardless of the current pain.

I bless you to speak to Yeshua, who is capable of taking all pain. I bless each of you, parts, to just be and to appropriate whatever of King’s love in whatever manner you deem necessary.

I bless your enforcers in their anger to express that anger and frustration and to ask the questions they need to ask. This is a safe space for them.

I bless you to know what is meant by fellowshipping with the King in His sufferings.

I bless you to participate with Him in a deep and satisfying connection.

And most importantly, I bless you to, in the still place, for your parts that which to occupy that space, to occupy that space in time and to fill that space with the knowledge of Him.

I bless you with dignity and grace and love and affection and wholeness.

And above all, I bless you, spirit, and relevant parts to know you belong.

You belong, dear heart.

In stillness, you belong.

I bless you to know Him as G-d, spirit, in the name of Yeshua.

So be it.

Concerning Fathering: My Perspective On What Is Missing

17 April 2018 by theparacleteshammer, posted in Fathering, Slavery to Sonship

Matt. 13:12 For to the one who has, more will be given, and he will have an abundance, but from the one who has not, even what he has will be taken away.

Matt. 21:43 ¶ Therefore I tell you, the kingdom of God will be taken away from you and given to a people producing its fruits.

Matt. 25:29 For to everyone who has will more be given, and he will have an abundance. But from the one who has not, even what he has will be taken away.

What I am going to say is doubtless going to cause some who view spiritual fathering as the great takeaway in this generation of the church to be greatly disappointed.
I have a spiritual father.
The sad thing, is that, I have always had him, and he was always available.
So, let me explain below.
A FATHERLESS GENERATION THAT NEEDS A FATHER
The fact remains: We have a generation of unfathered men and woman, and it has been this way for decades. I don’t need to cite stats because many of y’all already know them.
In an attempt to stave off this culture, many believers in our generation, Jew and non-Jew, have affirmed the following broken model.
THE BROKEN MODEL
“I don’t have a father. I will ask or beg this or that person to father me or mother me. That person agrees to it.”
And we blissfully proceed down a path to paradise, because, now after all, we have a spiritual father.
THE BAD EXPECTATIONS AND THE NEGATIVE OUTFLOW
What we didn’t explain or understand is that there are these sets of expectations that we bring to the table in a fathering relationship. The “father” has one set of expectations, and the “son” has another set of expectations.
The problem arises when we insert the broken model of fathering that we call “covering” into these relationships. This perverse teaching flows from the spirit of antichrist, and I will cover that in another post.
And what is missing from a lot of these fathering relationships, which I will cover in this post, is the foundation and impetus for fathering relationships: the presence and acknowledgement of the one thing that, as a believer, you and I already have: access to and a relationship with a perfect, loving heavenly Father. 11354
MY INITIATION INTO FATHERING
As a matter of fact, when I became a follower of Jesus, back in 1984, it was precisely in the context of a fathering/filial relationship.
Jesus showed up in my bedroom (whether it was a dream or an open vision that detail is fuzzy to me). He was wearing a plain linen robe and that was pretty much it. Very simple. There was no mistaking who this was. He then asked me, “what do you want?”
Hello, blank check.
Solomon, son of David.
And I can still remember the words falling out of my mouth, though I can tell you to this day, that those words did not come from a wound or any place of my soul; they were just the most logical words I ever spoke. And because of the simplicity and non-woundedness of them, I am believe they came from my spirit.
“I want a godfather.”
And His response, which I won’t easily forget was this:
“I will be your G-dfather.”
From that moment, I was clearly able to articulate that Jesus was the Son of G-d. I was able to say He was the Son, but I was not able to clearly articulate why. In short, this was when I was saved.
So for those of you that like to spit and say, “there is no way, because this or that is how you get saved and it works for everybody”, I can only respond as a Mercy would respond:
“That. So. Doesn’t. Work. For. Me.”
Yes, I am not a Mercy, but I had a whole host of unusual experiences that happened to me that have some Mercy flavor.
See, some people cannot understand that not everybody who becomes a Christian does so through saying a sinner’s prayer at an altar with someone else.
Now, do I have an awareness of sin? Yeah. I grew into that awareness, pretty quickly, and the repentance that followed, I also grew into.
THE IMPETUS AND REVELATION OF WHAT I WAS GIVEN IN JESUS’ INVITATION
But what it took for me to really grasp the idea of the Fatherhood of G-d was a series of very painful, broken relationships that happened after I left the Methodist Church for college. I hooked up with a CP (Classical Pentecostal) Denomination while in college and as many people in the late 1990’s got sucked into a perversion of the fivefold ministry and the “covering” nonsense, and the garbage that came with that. And it came at a high price to the end that I spent 14 years trapped in a combination of a Philistine Curse, the Negative 5th Head of Leviathan (where people could not hear my heart rightly), the Mesmerizing Spirit, and a number of negative Spiritual Structures.
During those years, a set of spiritual structures was set in place by my spiritual mother at the time that caused other people to see me as “crazy” and “unstable”. Those came in the form of a straitjacket in the spiritual realm and sedatives that were pumped into me and labels.
And that nonsense was only broken after I rejected the “spiritual parents” that parented by control, rejected that Mesmerizing Spirit, understanding the one thing I needed was something I already had: namely, that I already have a Father (many joyous thanks to Sandy Landry for helping me there), and breaking up the spiritual structures that affected me deeply (thank you, Megan Caldecourt for the language to explain what those things were).
TO THOSE WHO HAVE…
Today, here is what I know through principle. We don’t need spiritual parents.
Yeah, I will let that bomb explode and then expand on it.
We do not need to go to anyone and beg them to father or mother us.
Now, let’s expand on this.
We started this walk with Jesus as a personal relationship. We love to emphasize, in Protestant Christianity, the notion of “personal relationship with Jesus.”
But, more often than not, we reject it in practice. We have this idea that Jesus saved us, but we are often not interested in cultivating the relationship into a relationship. Many times, we are not willing that He should influence the stuff of our Monday through Saturday reality. We don’t want Him in our job, or marriage, our parenting, our errands, our chores, our lawnmowing, our feeding the birds, our our Facebooking.
And on that last point, so Facebook turns to Faceb****. And so much of our life remains much the same as it did before we met Jesus, because we don’t let that relationship impact our lives.
The passages above say it clearly. If you have, more will be given, but if you don’t have, then what you do have will be taken from you.
Hey, gang of Christians, you have been given a personal Father already. He is spiritual. He lacks no resources to parent you, and yet you are running after this person or that person begging him or her to father you or mother you, when Father wants to be your first spiritual father and your first place of dumping and your first place of crying and your first counselor.
THE REST OF MY PERSONAL STORY
When I hunted for a spiritual father and mother, the relationship with the one Father I had stagnated. Everything was taken away and devoured in many areas.
But when I recognized that I had Him as a Father, then He added to that package some precious people as fathers and mothers, not to suck them dry, but to get some other perspective.
He added and grew the connection between me and Arthur Burk (who is the closest thing I have to a good male counselor/mentor/father type person in the flesh, and the expectations that are there are in the context of Matthew 6:33). Arthur talks honestly and openly about stuff, and there is more of a two way thing that happens there. It’s healthy, at least as how I see it. I act as a son of the Heavenly Father, and hunt for my own resources, and when I have a nut that I can’t crack on my own, I ping Arthur, who says “have you checked over here or here”. And back to tooling I go. Because I am first and foremost a son of G-d.
And the Father also grew the connection between me and Sandy Landry. There is a precious bond that has multiplied there, that is without words. She has…spoken with dignity to me and helped me to receive of the Father’s embrace such that I could become a father myself.
And I am growing into a place where I am able to father others.
THE PUNCHLINE
If we don’t act like we have, then what we do have will be devoured. But if we as believers stop and recognize that we have a Father already, and EMBRACE HIM HAS OUR FIRST AND PRIMARY FATHER, then He will begin to add other things to us.
But the key is that we stop acting like we are slaves and servants, and embrace our identity as His sons. “For we are His offspring” (Acts 17:28).
In Him, not in others, we live and move and are (Acts 17:28).
And we are His workmanship, not the workmanship of another human being (Ephesians 2:10).
Gang, you already have a Father, and He is available.
Until you can receive that Father, you need to stop chasing after this or that person to parent you. And recall that Malachi 4:6 says that in order for someone to father you, their heart has to first be turned toward you. It’s not your begging that makes someone a father or a mother. It’s their connecting with you first. Begging is a sign of the orphan spirit, that can only be displaced.
And that can only have it’s right perspective IF you first have the right Father in the first place. And what better Father can G-d give you than He Himself?
And if Father gives you no-one for a season or permanently, so that He can show you how He directly fathers you, then you might have to go without a human being for a season, so that Father can show you how to receive directly from him.
What does He lack with which to father you?
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLC3C9326F3904B74E