A letter from Father
My Dear Precious Child,
You have always been my joy and delight! You’ve always had my undying love and affection. That is why it saddens me to see you striving to win my approval and blessing through the things that you are doing. Please stop. Your well-intentioned, however misguided attempts to earn my favour are only hurting you. They are only causing you unnecessary stress and anxiety. You are being robbed of your joy and freedom, and inhibited in your experience of my unceasing love for you.
I don’t like to see you weighed down and burdened - oppressed by a mentality that essentially blinds you to the truth of who I am. I want you to live in complete freedom. I created you to live in my joy, to rest in my full acceptance of you, and to bask in my unconditional love! I do not want you to live like a slave, bound to a false notion of what I am like. I am your loving Father, not a mean-spirited taskmaster, poised and ready to dish out wrathful punishment! Don't you see, you cannot earn my love and grace - they are my free gift to you!
I'm not at all interested in you jumping through a set of religious hoops in an effort to try and please me! Please don't relate to me on the basis of the things that you do, or don't do. I don't operate that way! I love and accept you just the way you are. So please learn to stop, breathe, and find your rest in my unconditional love for you. It is not me who is putting those burdens of expectation upon your shoulders. I would never have you live your life according to a religious check list, all the while thinking that I am not happy with you unless you measure up to certain standards. I am not actually unhappy with you! I see the wonderful treasure that I have placed within you, and I also understand why you struggle with the things you do. I simply want you to abide in my love. So let my love and grace do the work in you, and through you. Let me do in you, what only I can. Your job is simply to enjoy my love - to participate in my grace, as it works through you. You get to participate in my love story, with my love being expressed both in you, and through you.
I don’t want you to spend your life running on a religious treadmill! You can actually get off that treadmill you know! I want you to learn to chill out and learn to relax, in knowing that I am always with you, constantly delighting in who you are. My Spirit actually lives within you, so don't worry, I will always help you. I’m not going anywhere. You are actually safe with me. I am for you, and not against you. Not even death can separate us. I have arranged it so that we will be together in love forever! Please recognise that religious striving is just humanity’s misguided attempt to do accomplish something that I have actually already done, in and through Christ! Christ has already done everything that is necessary for your wholeness, freedom, and eternal well-being, in inseparable at-one union with me! Yes, Christ has already done everything that was always necessary, for you.
And please don't think for a second that I would ever manipulate or control you. I would never treat you harshly, nor coerce you through fear. Wrath and fear are not my way, love is! I will never use fear in an effort to get you to do what I want. I would never treat you in such a horrible manner. Love is who I am, and is my only paradigm! And my love is about your freedom, for freedom is the only context for love! So, freely receive, and freely give - never under compulsion, nor coercion, and never because of guilt or shame! I simply will not manipulate you through fear, for fear works directly against love. Remember, my perfect love casts out all fear! And you don’t need to fear punishment, because I am not actually interested in punishing anyone! I am interested in transforming people through the experience of my kindness, love and grace. My loving-kindness is what actually works. The imposition of religious of do's and don'ts, and the use of fear to motivate people is not how I work - that’s a just misguided human mentality!
I motivate through love - through genuine heart-felt desire. I do not force or impose my will upon anyone. I allow people the absolute freedom to explore all manner of possibility, and to make thier own choices - always in the hope that they will grow in wisdom and insight as they experience the natural consequences for their beliefs, choices and actions. As such, the natural consequences in life are there for the purpose of ultimately leading people to what is good, right, and true. So please don’t think if something bad happens, that it is me punishing you, or that I am unhappy with you. My Spirit is forever with you, to lead you in the life-giving way. The Spirit is always there to help you through life’s journey, and to give you wisdom, insight and understanding.
My concern is for your well-being, just as it is for every person. I am not actually offended by the mess that people can make of things! Sin never caused me to turn away, nor to think badly of anyone! I know exactly who I lovingly created each person to be, and am ever-aware of all the good things that I have placed within them. Bad behaviour is simply evidence of faulty belief, which ultimately relates to a lack in knowing who I truly am. Sin never changed me, nor my love - sin just isn't that powerful! In fact, I have actually already fixed the sin problem - taking all corruption down to the grave in Christ's death, and then raising everyone up as incorruptibly whole, through His resurrection! Religious rules and codes of behaviour can't ever compete with that! Christ really has set all humanity free from sin's influence - it's just that they need to see it! People will change for the better when they see things from love’s true perspective - which I have ultimately made known, in and through Christ.
Your religious striving is actually evidence that you have lost sight of the truth of who I am. The god you serve through following the list of religious requirements or rules is not me; it is the god of your own imagination - a myth! My concern is never with how much you pray, read the bible, attend church, tithe, or evangelise. I am not actually measuring your spiritual activity. I simply want you to know me, and to see who I really am. And so, any spiritual activity that you do choose to do, simply do it by way of enjoying what is already freely yours, through Christ. Simply put yourself in the way of the truth, and let the truth do all the heavy lifting. Yes, the truth will indeed give you life, and set you free. This is actually about abiding in my love. So please stop looking to the religious systems of man to validate and affirm you, when all the while my love and grace simply rest upon you, just as I reside within you.
I loved you, and even knew you, long before you were born. And you had no say on this, nor did you do anything to make this so. For love is who I am, and what I always feel toward you. I have already included you within my love, just look at what Christ has done, This is my free gift to you. You do not need to do a thing to make this any more real than it already is. It simply is! And so, there’s nothing that you can add, to the work that I have already completed in Christ! So please don’t think I want you to work for me. It is I who am at work within you! You are my precious child, not a servant, nor a slave! I will only treat you with love and respect, as my child, all the while ascribing to you such innate value and priceless worth. My love and my grace are actually there within you - and there to flow out from inside your very being. That is how the real work gets done! Be aware of my very life, and my very love, as they move in you, and through you, trusting that I am always about my work!
If you could be transformed, restored, and made whole by your own efforts, then what my Son went through would have been unnecessary, and his death ultimately meaningless. But what He did was for your benefit, and an essential work that you could never do. Please know that what Jesus did secured you in union with me forever, in the full perfection of my own divine wholeness! You are forever part of the divine family, of Father, Spirit, and Son; included in intimate fellowship with me, through Christ. It is all of grace, and has nothing to do with what you do, or don’t do. Nothing can change this eternal reality. Therefore, whatever you choose to do, do it knowing that I am always for you, and that my every thought toward you is only good and perfectly loving. Let my peace be your guide, let my joy be your strength, and let my certain hope ground your being. It is going to be ok, because I've got you safe and secured. So let's enjoy life’s journey together.
Rest in me. Nothing will ever change how I feel about you. You are my precious child.