I taught "Father Heart of God" over six sessions, then posted my (abbreviated) teaching notes to Psalms Of John. Now I am revising these posts so they will be more meaningful to read. Jesus came to heal us and set us free, bless us all – February 2026.
Part 2: Relationships
Part 3: Beliefs and Strongholds
Part 4: Unworthy, Yet Adopted
Part 5: Faith And Intimacy
Part 6: God Is Love
Who Am I? Why Am I Teaching This?
I have had rich life experiences, made plenty of mistakes and learned a little! There is much of my own testimony in these posts. I know that I am richly blessed.
In 1985 I became Christian. I knew then that God, as Father, Son and Holy
Spirit, love me, and actively fill me, and have purpose for my life. But, for
many years, mostly I was stuck and knew little spiritual growth. I was close
with Jesus but, to me, our Father God was distant and authoritative, not "Abba" as Jesus sees Him.
I took part in two "Father Heart of God" courses, after each one I
would say to Trish, "the course was really good, but I don't feel at all
changed". But I was.
Now I can say that our God is a wonderful Father to me and I love him!
My Lord Jesus asked me to share His Father with you.
Favourite Bible Verses - Hope and Assurance
"You shall seek me, and find me, when you
shall search for me with all your heart" (Jeremiah 29:13 and Matthew 5:6 ).
"Therefore, I tell you,
don't be anxious for your life: what you will eat, or what you will drink; nor
yet for your body, what you will wear. Isn't life more than food, and the body
more than clothing?" (Luke 12:22-23 and
Matthew 6:25).
"For freedom did Christ set us free" (Galatians 5:1).
Big Questions
• Why Are We Here?
• Was there a Creation?
• Is the spiritual world real? Is there a spiritual reality?
• How can we know?
• Is the Creator God real, is Jesus?
• What gives life meaning?
• Where does love come from?
• Family?
• Gender and Sex?
• Beauty, and "love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness,
gentleness, and self-control (Galatians 5:22-23)?
• Is Evolution real? "If everything is just matter, why does everything matter?"
• Why is the world such a mess?
Dichotomy
For most of us there is a vast difference between God's design and plan for us - and the day-to-day experience of our lives.
Our heavenly Father urgently wants to put this right. Remember, Jesus is "Prince of Peace" (Isaiah
9:6).
Our Bible tells us that we live in the promises of God under Jesus' New
Covenant; this is our spiritual reality. Can we appropriate this into our
heart? "Jesus is Lord" (Romans 10:9), He created
and now sustains everything:
"For by him all things were created, in the
heavens and on the earth, things visible and things invisible, whether thrones
or dominions or principalities or powers; all things have been created through
him, and for him. He is before all things, and in him all things are held
together" (Colossians 1:16-17).
Jesus has overcome sin and death (John 3:16). Yet trouble still abounds.
Satan's rule here struggles onward; this is called "already and not
yet."
"We know that we are children of God, and that the whole world is under the control of the evil one. We know also that the Son of God has come and has given us understanding, so that we may know him who is true. And we are in him who is true by being in his Son Jesus Christ. He is the true God and eternal life" (1 John 5:20)
But God is always God - Creator - Sustainer – Father, He is faithful, reliable.
We seek to apprehend this and know
that it is true. Truly knowing that the God of all Creation is our Father will
be such a great "rock"
(Psalm 18:2, 31, 46), such an "anchor"
(Hebrews 6:19) for our soul.
"A father to the fatherless, a defender of widows, is God in his holy dwelling. God sets the lonely in families and the desolate in a homeland, he leads out the prisoners with singing" (Psalm 68: 5-6).
"You gave abundant showers, O God; you refreshed your weary inheritance. Your people settled in it " (Psalm 68: 9).
The World We See
I was a boy in mid 20th Century. I grew up in a very mixed world:
WWI was past, also the Great Depression. Older people still talked about these terrible, long-lasting events. Then there was WWII in my lifetime, with tens of millions dead, tortured, broken and hundreds of cities devastated. My dad and my friends' dads had come home from that war.
In my teens we knew the impact of the Soviet Union and its Iron Curtain
- the Cold War with "Mutually Assured Destruction" and "The
Communist Menace". There was talk of "The Yellow Peril” from China,
Korea and Viet Nam, (people were much less racially sensitive and "politically
correct" back then).
Big Ideas In The World - Mid to Late 20th Century
• Psychology: the six major theories in psychology: humanism, psychoanalytic, socio-cultural, behaviourism, neuro-biological, and cognitive. Freud, Jung, Nietzsche, Skinner. We saw that none of these were very helpful. Few people ever are healed and come out of therapy - few answers.
• Communism and Socialism: every attempt to implement these ideas was a disaster - vast millions of citizens were dispossessed – more than 100 millions of their own people were killed.
• Economic Rationalism (today's favourite): Trickle-down economics and globalisation. Money is everything, morality is irrelevant, global market rules, greed is good, power and control is better.
• Corporations are often more powerful than governments
• Corporations benefit the
affluent and powerful - are terrible for everyone else
• Increasing separation of
"have" and "have-not" in Western countries, the "1%"
now rule us
• Injustice in the World - many hungry
- increasing slavery (yes, increasing slavery, recognised for decades but
largely ignored by our "authorities")
• Global Financial Crisis - the rich
stayed rich but millions lost their pensions; nations went broke. We are
assured that there will be more, similar "market corrections".
21st Century
Our present century seems even more chaotic:
• Endless talk of the threat of "global warming", now called "climate change".
• Drugs, which kill and destroy people, are a multi-trillion-dollar global industry.
• Information gathering is increasing daily while privacy becomes a memory, this allows unparalleled levels of government and corporate control over every aspect of our lives, "our phone are listening to us talking!"
We remember that: "our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms" (Ephesians 6:12); our Father God will help us to "stand" (Ephesians 6:11).
.. and that Jesus said: "how often I wanted to gather your children
together, like a hen gathers her own brood under her wings"
(Luke 13:34).
My Dad and Me
I was a wartime baby, conceived during that poignant time when my mum and
dad knew he was going to war, but had not yet left. My parents loved the
outdoors; trekking in the bush and skiing with friends. They were very social;
they wore formal clothes a lot.
I think my father was a happy, fun, generous, sweet guy.
He became a navigator on bombers, he directed the plane to the target and
pulled the trigger to release the bombs. One of his planes came down in France,
he was captured by the Germans and escaped back to England bringing precious
military intelligence with him. King George gave him an MBE, a medal of great
honour.
Pop returned home when I was three. He was very saddened; he was not able to
talk about the war. Most of his fellow airmen died. A few years earlier my
mother and he had had a wonderful honeymoon in Europe, they especially enjoyed
visiting Germany, skiing and hiking and touring. He bombed cities and people they
had known.
My sisters and I remember him as stern, distant, authoritative, bitter, and
without worldly success. He was mean with money and affection. We all knew that
he had at least one affair while we were teenagers.
He and I did not converse in any real way from when I was seventeen until the
day before he died, thirty years later. He loved my wife Trish, and twice came
to visit us at our hobby farm in Australia's South West. They talked a lot, but
when I walked into the room he would fall silent.
When he was dying his sister said that I must go and visit him in the hospital.
The hospital registrar assured me that he would quickly get better and I should
save my money until he was really sick. My aunt insisted and I
went. We had about eighteen hours together. He could not speak, except with his
eyes and his hands. We had eighteen hours of loving one another. Then he was
gone.
All those years of separation. What a waste. We so need to be fathered, and
there is a Father for everybody, our
Father in Heaven.
"Father Heart Of God: 1 of 2" is now a podcast on Spotify under PsalmsOfJohn
• Public link to podcast
https://open.spotify.com/episode/2GhGdSKu4XKfmc652hgo9J
https://open.spotify.com/episode/1coFc3RgOhdtb6WtCczE9m
Amen.
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