Apostolic Fathers Today!

Clearly the Father God is revealing Himself through the knowledge of the Son of God!  Jesus said in Matt. 11:27- ”  All things have been delivered to Me by My Father, and no one knows the Son except the Father.  Nor does anyone know the Father except the Son, and the one to whom the Son wills to reveal Him.”

Jesus then said in St. John 14:23- “If anyone loves Me, he will keep My word;  and My Fa…ther will love him, and We will come to him and make Our abode (home) with him.”  John said in I John 2:22,23-  “Who is a liar but he who denies that Jesus is the Christ?  He is antichrist who denies the Father and the Son.  Whoever denies the Son does not have the Father either;  he who acknowledges the Son has the Father also.”

The pattern in the Godhead that reveals the order of relationships in the Spirit is the order of “Fathers and Sons!”  Today, there has returned an emphasis on relationships that are birthed our of relationship with our “heavenly Father” through our Lord Jesus Christ.  Jesus said in John 14:6- “I am the way, the truth, and the life.  No one comes to the Father  except through Me.”
Therefore today the key to relationships in “Fatherhood and Sonship.”  Once again, Jesus demonstrated that in His sonship to the Father.  Heb. 3:1,6-  Therefore, holy brethren, partakers of the heavenly calling, consider the Apostle and High Priest of our confession, Christ Jesus, who was faithful to Him to who appointed Him,… but Christ as a SON over His own house, whose house we are if we hold fast the confidence and the rejoicing of the hope firm to the end.

Now today, many are jumping on the bandwagon of “apostleship” but many are not embracing the “Fathering” heart of our God!  Many apostles are building networks and wanting “pastors” to join their network as a “covering” but once again instead of relational authority it is “positional authority!”  They are wanting to be apostles “over churches” but it is viewed more as an “organization” than as a spiritual operation of the Holy Ghost.  It will not work in this New Day and New ERA because the “new wine simply cannot be put in an old wineskin.’

The classic text found in I. Co. 4:15 simply defines the difference in the styles of leadership today:  “For though you might have ten thousand instructors in Christ, yet you do not have many fathers;  for in Christ Jesus I have begotten you through the gospel.”  There must again be a “birthing” of these relationships that clearly demonstrate “father and son” in the order of God!
Many are shouting “Apostle, apostle” today but where are the true sons, or “the son” that reflects and reveals the pattern found in heaven through the Father and the Son!  Instead of trying to “cover” pastors and churches by networking, there should be a Fathering heart of God and a “spirit of sonship” with a crying out of “Father, Father!” Paul went on to say in I. Co. 4: 17 concerning His son in the faith, “For this reason I have sent Timothy to you, who is my beloved and faithful son in the Lord, who will remind you of my ways in Christ, as I teach everywhere in every church.”

The bottom line must be who is “representing” the Father by maturing and being called an “apostolic father” and where are the sons that are crying out, “Father, Father” as mature sons who are about their Father’s business!  If the apostolic is not linked to fathering, it is a ‘false start’ and cannot produce true sons in the faith that will be one with their father!  This is the pattern in the heavenlies that must be revealed in the earth!

I once heard a man of God say,” If you are an apostle, and you are not “apostle-lyzing” (not proselytizing) LOL, (that is, becoming a father by relating to sons), you may be “called” to be an apostle, but have not been “commissioned” as an apostle.”  True apostles will be first and foremost fathers whose hearts will be “turned” to sons, or children, and the hearts of many children will be turned to “their” fathers. (Mal. 4;5.6)

Jesus said in John 14:7- “If you had known Me, you would have known My Father also;  and from now on you know Him and have seen Him.”