Fearlessly Courageous
Desk of Dennis Piller
6 17 2024

Audio Version

Sunday Service: I felt like I had walked into the very presence of God.
But I am born of his spirit and when I walk into the collective presence of my church family, shouldn’t i be feeling the power of that collective presence? How could one not? Being one! United in one spirit!.
Aside from political views, religious differences, varying ethnicities, and backgrounds…
”But God” says. I bring peace. I bring unity, power, and wisdom to both my families and my church.
Make way for the way maker. Choose to acknowledge his providence, sovereignty, and infinite wisdom and believe its god. Believe what he is said to have done.
Believe what his word says. Believe in the waymaker.

Maybe it was because it was Father’s Day.
There is a love that goes out on the day that we honor our fathers. Whether they are here or gone to be with the Lord like mine. I know some didn’t have the greatest Dad.
Some didn’t have a Dad because they left them. I get that.
But Fatherhood carries with it a power, a grace that matters. Because some did not have that father’s influence, it didn’t render God helpless for those souls.
God gave us the model and on this day, we recognize that spirit..
the power in recognizing their love, their character, and their sacrifices that let loose an emotional dynamic that is let out into the universe. This joy and appreciation is released universally
and it washed over me on Sunday.
I lost my dad 12 years ago but I still stop to remember the impact of his presence on me. .. still.

For the fatherless – Psalm 68:5 provides a profound promise. It communicates that God reserves a special relationship of Fatherhood to those who do not enjoy the blessings of a good dad in this life. He says, I will be “Father of the fatherless and protector of widows is God in his holy habitation.” His aim is to show orphans mercy, care, and protection, and because these waiting children are essential to him, they should be essential to us as his Church. It’s called a relationship…not a religion.

In addition to being Almighty Father who is able to save, he is the eternal Father willing to save.
God promised in Exodus 22:22 “You shall not afflict any widow or fatherless child.”
Also, James 1:27 says, “Pure and undefiled religion before God and the Father is this: to visit orphans and widows in their trouble.” Of course, God loves and wants us to help the fatherless and motherless and the widower as well.

Sunday we celebrated the sacrifice and love of our fathers. It is accompanied by God’s promise in
Deut 6: 4-9 “Hear, O Israel: The LORD our God, the LORD is one. You shall love the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might. And these words that I command you today shall be on your heart. You shall teach them diligently to your children, and shall talk of them when you sit in your house, and when you walk by the way, and when you lie down, and when you rise. You shall bind them as a sign on your hand, and they shall be as frontlets between your eyes. You shall write them on the doorposts of your house and on your gates”.

We in the West have relegated much of our responsibilities to the local church, summer camp, schools, a mentor or grandparents. But that job was given to us by God himself. The father’s role is central. He tells us that these other priorities we have taken on have taken president over the indoctrination of our children before God. Giving them part of a 401k is no trade for the development of their faith and a relationship with God. The lack of taking this seriously is the main reason for the decline of Christianity in the United States.

Samuel Slater (Presbyterian minister in London) wrote a tract in 1694 in favor of family worship in which he also offered this lament:
“There is so little done for God in the houses of many who call themselves Christians, that one would take them not for Christians, but Atheists, and conclude them without God in the world, yea, and that altogether; for there is no praying in their families, no reading of the Scriptures, no singing of psalms, no repeating of sermons, no catechizing of young ones, who would not take these for heathens, if they did not call themselves something else?

Can we deny when family worship is neglected it affects not only the health of the family
but of the Church and society at large?

Godly fathering is one of the most blessed and challenging callings in life. It requires intentionality, diligence, grace, truth, wisdom, love, patience and prayer. It also does not guarantee a child will follow the Lord but it does increase the probability. It appears like an enormous endeavor—and it is—but in every command of God is a promise for those who trust Him in it,
that His grace will be sufficient to enable you to undertake the task.

Hopefully, you all love the Lord, but you’re children have left home or are already teenagers and you haven’t fulfilled this fatherly calling the way you have liked and you have regret.
Ask for forgiveness and pray for God to give you opportunities now
that you didn’t do them. Is it ever too late to honor God?
It is never too late to love our children and love them through the filter of the Holy Spirit.
It’s never too late to pray for your kids, to invite them into your growing relationship
with Jesus because they love you too.
It’s never too late to honor God and trust him for the outcome. There is a power in Fathers Day spiritually speaking. It literally cries out to be heard and praised. Whatever your past…whether it be one of complete appreciation and praise or whether you left some potholes along the way. Jesus is Jehovah Rafa our healer. Pray and trust him to be God and we get to be his obedient children even if we are already fathers.

Waymaker