We are coming into a revelation of who we are as sons of God and learning how to live out of that revelation. But if instead, we listen to the whisperers, the familiar spirits which empower demonic strongholds and mindsets, then we can find ourselves on a downward spiral.
12 steps to an orphan heart
Humans are designed to be survivors. We develop coping mechanisms and protection mechanisms – layers, walls or skins that we believe keep us safe. But they quickly become behavioural blind-self prisons, and they are stumbling blocks to our destiny.
How does a slavery mentality or an orphan heart form?
- Nature – we can inherit it genetically from previous generations.
- Nurture – upbringing, parental and relational influences. Words, attitudes and treatment can have a powerful effect on how we see and think about ourselves.
- Traumatic events.
And we too can pass it on in our DNA to future generations. In the field of epigenetics, scientists are showing that genetic material can change, even within a single generation.
Here are the 12 steps:
- We are affected by faults in parental activity.
- We receive parental faults as disappointments, discouragement, grief, rejection or insecurity.
- We develop unmet needs and coping mechanisms.
- We move into the fear of receiving love, comfort and admonition from others.
- We develop a closed heart.
- We take on an independent, self-reliant attitude.
- We start controlling our relationships.
- Our relationships become superficial.
- We develop an ungodly belief that says no-one will be there to meet our needs.
- We begin to live life like a spiritual orphan.
- We begin chasing after counterfeit affections.
- We begin to daily battle a stronghold of oppression.
Counterfeit affections
Depending on individual circumstances we may have extreme or mild symptoms. But we are all born with a sense of separation from God, so our souls have unmet needs and an emptiness that must be filled. Until we come to a full revelation of being truly loved and accepted in God, the counterfeit affections we seek include:
- Passions – addictions – food, alcohol, drugs, sex, pornography, escapism etc. – comforts for our needy hearts.
- Possessions – security in materialism.
- Performance – perfectionism, doing things to prove or feel better about ourselves.
- People – looking to people to meet our needs as substitutes for God – whether being people-pleasers or abusers.
- Places – needing somewhere better to be happy – wanderlust, looking for home.
- Position – striving for acceptance and approval, especially from significant others, including God: praise of man.
- Power – seeking to control life and our own destiny by controlling emotions, people, or circumstances so as never to be hurt or disappointed.
We have all tried these things, and we know they do not work. Only God can truly meet our needs. So how can we get free of this bondage?
We have a 20-part series on Transformation which will certainly help!
We need healing from our wounds. We need to surrender our defences and be willing for those coping and defence mechanisms to fall away. We need to experience the reality of being redeemed, reconciled and restored to our relationship with God. We need to open our hearts to God as our Father and receive His adoption, acceptance and affirmation. Nothing and no-one can replace our Father God, He wants us to receive our security and acceptance in the fullness of relationship with Him.
We need to desire an intimate relationship with God where trust develops; to pursue Him – to ask, seek, knock, as Jesus taught (and it takes persistence to overcome the obstacles). Let’s give Him our first love, give Him our priority time, and then we will get to know Him personally and feel His great love for us by experience.
Love languages
God desires to father us in such a way that we know we are truly loved as individuals. We are not just a ‘job lot’. We all have different love languages – the way we feel love is different. Our particular love languages may correspond to our different gift types or unmet needs. We need to find out which is ours:
- Gift-giving
- Quality time
- Words of affirmation
- Physical affection
- Acts of service
Our love language with God may be different from the one we have in our natural relationships. It took me a long time to realise it, but quality time is my spiritual love language. Father God sharing revelation with me of His heart, mind, purpose, and word is what makes me feel loved, valued and appreciated. I am unique, special, and He fathers me uniquely, according to my destiny.
At one time we were ‘alienated and hostile in mind’ (Col 1:21), feeling separated and orphaned from God, and separated from our souls and bodies, and from our heavenly home too. That was the ‘reality’ we lived in until we realised the truth that we were included when ‘God was in Christ reconciling the world to Himself, not counting their trespasses against them’ (2 Cor 5:19). The spirit was orphaned and the soul, therefore, had a slave mentality. Satan was the first orphan spirit, and therefore disunity, disharmony and division is always his goal.
Meeting our soul’s needs
We have seen this diagram before:
Our soul has natural needs but is accustomed to living in separation from God and from our spirit. Our body (flesh) reaches out to the world looking for love, acceptance, security, significance and purpose – it does not know where else to look. That causes damage (including hurt, pain, rejection, insecurity, fear, disappointment, guilt and shame).
When we realise we are born again and our spirit is brought back to life, we then have access to the fountain of living water that is within us. We can find love, acceptance, security, significance and purpose in God and in our relationship with Him. We are connected to the source of life. So when we go through a process of transformation, in which we are restored and renewed to God’s original intended condition, we have this tension between how we have learned to meet our needs when disconnected from God and how we now know we can get those needs met in Him. After years and years of following the flesh, this is a battle we must persevere in and win. Once we learn to be cut off from the world, then we can be healed, restored and ultimately transfigured, so that the flow of life from heaven goes through our spirit, soul and body out to the world. We will begin to manifest God’s glory, His presence and His power to change the world in which we live.
We are supposed to be world-changers. It was always our destiny to bring God’s dominion and His blessing to the earth. But to fulfil that destiny we need to be willing to persevere and go through this process.
In Genesis 2 God said that it is not good for man to be alone, and that is because relationship is key to reflecting heaven on earth. Relationship is at the core of the life of the Triune God, Father, Son and Holy Spirit. God’s desire is for man to experience being joined, reunited, reconciled, and restored to Him in relationship. That is why unity is so important, as we see the early church of one mind, one heart, in one accord. They were together in their love for and their pursuit of God, and they changed and transformed their world.
Centre of our being
Here is another familiar diagram, representing the gateways in our spirit, soul and body.
But we have a black hole on the inside which absorbs everything, lets nothing in and nothing out, until we experience relationship with God through Jesus. Then we can connect with God’s glory and His Presence in the very centre of our being (see the next two images), so we can engage with God in our spirit. However, for far too many believers God is locked away in there.
One spirit with Him
“But the person who is united (joined) to the Lord becomes one spirit with Him” (1 Cor 6:17).
That is God’s intention, that we become one spirit with Him by being joined or united to God. We do that by opening up our first love gate because that establishes a reconnection between our spirit and the Father and heaven. It also reconnects our spirit to our soul and body, so that we become one, holistic, unified piece. God’s desire is for us to be whole, that we would be completely reconnected to everything, to have the relationship with the Father and the Son that our spirit was designed to have in eternity.
Our spirit will be orphaned unless it finds its home with the Father and in heaven and God finds a home in us, which connects it all back together.
I encourage you to look at this picture right now, at the First Love door in the centre. Behind that door is the presence of God, the glory of God, God Himself. This is in the midst of your spirit.
“Behold, I stand at the door and knock; if anyone hears My voice and opens the door, I will come in to him and will dine with him, and he with Me” (Rev 3:20).
That is an invitation to relationship, fellowship and intimacy. It is an invitation to all – whether or not we call ourselves ‘Christians’. Maybe you have never opened that door. The handle is on our side, so we have to open the door. Will you open that door today? Will you become joined and reconnected to God today?
Open the door
Close your eyes and imagine this picture in your mind’s eye. There is a door, and behind it is God: His love, His acceptance, His affirmation. If you have never opened it before, you can do so now. You can say, in your heart, “I open that door to you, God. I choose to let you into my life. I choose to receive Your love. I choose to follow you and become Your disciple. I choose You.”
I encourage you, open up the door of your life to God. He is knocking, wanting relationship with you so that you can begin this journey from slavery to sonship, this journey of intimacy with God. Meet Jesus, meet the Father, meet the Holy Spirit; hear what they say to you.
Now for those who have done this before, maybe you too are feeling separated, distanced from God? Again, just open up that door right now, because Jesus is the source of life, and start drinking from the river of life that begins to flow. Get into that river of living water, allow it to envelop you. As you open the door, feel His love, feel His embrace, feel the joy that comes from His heart to you. Jump in the river. Let the energy of that source of life begin to flow in you, becoming rivers of living water, ready to flow out of you. Just spend some time there, if you just need that refreshing, enjoy the feel of His arms around you.
Perhaps you are used to opening this door, and you want to go further, then you can walk through the open door and follow that river back into heaven. You can get into the river of life there and follow it back to its source at the throne of grace, back to the Tree of Life, back to the garden of God. The atmosphere of heaven is the breath of life, the glory of God is the oxygen of heaven. You can experience Him in the realms of heaven because you have opened that door and it becomes a two-way flow of life.
Meet the Father today.
Wherever you are in your journey, just spend a few minutes today in the presence of God, in your own heart or in heaven, experiencing His presence and receiving His love and affirmation. Receive His acceptance. Hear these words of affirmation from your heavenly Father.
I love you, my child. Receive My words of affirmation.
I accept you. I affirm you. I embrace you.
Receive My peace. Receive My love.
Return to me. Return to your heavenly home. Return to the intimacy of relationship.
I love you.