Episode Transcript
Speaker 1 00:00:05 Hey, welcome out to the grease house podcast. It's an honor to be here with you today. We got so many exciting things going on in the culture that we're creating. God is literally opening doors all across the country. It's really a powerful time. I mean, there's a lot of stress in our country. A lot of stress in our culture. And it's kind of funny. I brought this up in past episodes like God, did we miss the timing as a too late? Should we even do grace SOPs? And God was like, no, you need to get up. You need to get busy. You need to get to work and you need to do this. It's perfectly on time. It's in the heart of God to encourage the men, the masculine across this country to actually empower them in resource. I mean, equip them to live upright.
Speaker 1 00:00:43 We all want to deep down. I mean, especially men of God, right? We all want to go after the heart of God. But grace ops is a band of brothers being trained by grace to conquer darkness and empower men to live upright. So we aim to reach demand and we're going to, we're going to eventually reach the whole family. It's going to be a powerful time. Thanks for being part of our culture sound or have you today on the show today, we're actually going to be talking about the war of fathering, the war of fathering. I have a great guest. That's going to be with me in a moment, Russ Cline, who is a very powerful man of God, prophetic leader in the nations and the war fathering is our way of saying men engage the battle. We're not saying every day, they're mad or everybody's missed it.
Speaker 1 00:01:25 There's plenty of amazing fathers in the world. But what we're saying is we do live in an epidemic of followed lessness in Grace House wants to champion men to be powerful fathers. So we want to talk about this today to encourage you and to help you kind of engage in the power of what it means to actually be a father. There's a verse Jesus in Hebrews, it actually talks about Jesus and it says how he brought many sons to glory. And I just think about the love he had for God and how he was bringing sons and daughters to the father. Is this a powerful thing? No, one's perfect, but we must engage this battle. We must allow grace to train us in this area because the voice of a father can literally change nations. I mean, fathers play such a powerful role. And so I want to get right into introducing our guests, Russ Cline. I've known him for over 20 years now, 20, 25 years. It's been a long time. Ross, welcome to the episode today. Um, why don't you introduce yourself? Tell us about yourself and we're going to tackle this topic together.
Speaker 2 00:02:29 Sounds good, Brian. I appreciate it. I'm honored to be with you today on the Bo uh, the podcast here. Um, as far as, uh, who we are. So, uh, my wife and I have been married for 37 years. Kim and I have been, we met in Bible college, out in Springfield, Missouri and graduated then. And 1986, we started traveling to the nation. So have been 35 years now traveling to the nations by the grace of God. We've gone to six continents and over 40 nations, uh, sharing the of the Lord. And, uh, it's been an adventure. It's been an exciting adventure to watch God move all over the world. Of course it was during some of that time that you and I met and then Christie and our wives met and doing ministry together in different parts of the world. And, um, so I've been a husband for 37 years.
Speaker 2 00:03:17 I've been a father now for, for 19 years. We have a daughter Shakina after 17 years of not being able to have children, uh, God gave us a blessing of a child. And so Shakina has been all over the world with this ministry and the power of God. And, um, that's who I am. I'm 58 years old. We live out in Hampton, Virginia, and, uh, got a chance to be with Brian and Christie and person couple, three weeks ago. So it was good to catch up again when we were allowed to be together and, and, uh, see each other's faces without mask and all that good stuff. So anyway, it's good being with you. I I'm thrilled with what you all are doing the church, but also gray SOPs. I love the heart you guys have for men, not only to reach men, not only to help men live victorious lives, but what I love is to help envision an empowerment because sometimes men can be an afterthought in the church world.
Speaker 2 00:04:12 And it's almost like so much as either focus on, okay, let's just have a manly, good time and, you know, eat steak and barbecue and all that. And that's great, but I love the fact that you guys are reaching out to men to let them know they can live victorious in Christ, but not only that, because it's not just say quit sinning. It's all to say also to say, you have a purpose, you have a destiny, you have an identity in Christ and to cause men to arise. And so I'm thrilled to partner with you in whatever way we can with grace ops and that vision for the men of God to arise in the sour. And I agree with you that it is the right time. You know, in a lot of ways men have been so devalued in our culture over the last generation from, you know, comedies on TV that would have the bumbling father, the idiot father, uh, the man that couldn't do anything and only the woman could come along and rescue him. We're all grateful for our wives or mothers godly women in our lives. But so much of culture I've been pushed into that. And now we have the whole toxic masculinity idea, the idea that we have to apologize for being men, for being made and, you know, God made them male and female. And if God made me a male that I'm not going to apologize for that, I want to be the best man that I can be for the sake and the glory of his name.
Speaker 1 00:05:39 Yeah. And I think I'll just dive into a question here. Um, what is the purpose of a man? What what's, what is the power of a father? I mean, I think if we start there, we can, we can start to see why it's under such attack, you know, because of the role of a man,
Speaker 2 00:05:55 I think there's so many variables in that, but as far as the identity of a father and the need for fathers, we understand that our God is one God and three persons, his father, the son, and his spirit, um, and Jesus, we know this, the holy spirit comes to reveal Jesus, Jesus though said he came to reveal the father. And so the whole mission of Jesus yes, was to die for our sins to rise from the dead. But it was to bring, like you said earlier, to bring many sons and the glory, it was to reveal the father, heart of God. And so if God began as a father, he created mankind, created a man, a woman to be sons and daughters. In fact, in Psalm two, a it talks about how the father and the son and Tom and Memorial, uh, the father was speaking to the son and said, today you become my son.
Speaker 2 00:06:51 And so the, the, um, image, the identity, the, of the expression of God is initially as father, before he created the church, he created a family. And so he, his father. And so I think that if God is father, and that was the initial expression father creator, that God is wanting to express that, um, in powerful ways today. And because that is the expression of who God is, Satan wants to destroy any image of godly fathering, and let's face it, whether we like it or not. Our natural fathers and father figures in our lives naturally will be a reflection of how we see God. Typically, however, we see the father figures in our life is how we will end up viewing God. And so Satan wants to pervert that and destroy that if he can so that we don't have any trust in father God. So I think that's part of where we begin with it.
Speaker 1 00:07:52 Yeah. And I think in my, my life, my experience, so I came into the church when I was around 17 years old. I had visited a church when I was in my childhood, but I became really born again and really pursuing Christ when I was 17 or so. And so I kind of experienced the church from a different perspective. I wasn't raised in church every Sunday and the role of fathers to me, what I've learned over the last couple of decades is that fathers play a huge role. Um, like the generic stuff that applies to all of us. So we all, we all got to do it really well is we got to provide for our families. We got to protect our families. We, uh, but the voice of a father, the, the stance of a father, the posture of a father's heart, like speaks volumes into a child's heart when it comes to like identity, you know, mother's nurture, but so father's nurture as well.
Speaker 1 00:08:46 You know, I heard you're my children in confidence. I nurture them in their role and in their assignment. And when we were in an epidemic, you know, historically we're, the enemy has attacked the role of a father, the heart of a father discouraged the men. You know, if you can take the man, you can take the nation. I mean, that's just easy women, all due respect. I love women, but all the women in this country, aren't going to defend us from an enemy attack. All the men are supposed to do that. So yeah. Talk about that. Like, what's the power of the father's voice.
Speaker 2 00:09:23 Um, I believe this, the father speaks affirmation. Um, I think, and I love the way that I've watched Kim, my wife nurture and love and build up and confidence and faith, our daughters Shekhinah and spiritual sons and daughters that God has allowed us to touch different parts of the world. But there's something about the voice of the father. Um, you know, think about when your children are little, um, they will come in and they will. They want daddy to see the latest art project. They want daddy to say their acrobatic skill. They want daddy to see, uh, the song they made up, the dance they made of. If they're, you know, uh, you know, children that are given to that, they the want to see, they want daddy to see them playing sports or something about the affirmation of a father that is born into us, that we need and we want, and so I believe that when we can affirm our children, when we can affirm the spiritual sons and daughters, that God allows us to impact, it's going to let people know that God, the father is affirming them.
Speaker 2 00:10:30 Now we understand that as a father affirming, our child is not saying you're okay in your sin. It is affirming their personhood, their identity, not necessarily their behavior. And so father God, through Jesus Christ, he affirms me, he loves me. He accepts me. He celebrates me, but he also I've heard it put this way. He loves me just like I am, but he loves me too much to leave me like I am. And part of that is yes, it's both male and female, mom and dad. But part of the role of the father is without destroying the personhood, the identity, the value of the child is to help bring correction. I know one time, years ago, Shakira and I were taking a walk at the park here. And we got talking about the differences between fathers and mothers and how we operate different on our lives.
Speaker 2 00:11:23 And so I said, you know, um, if a child falls down skins, their name many times, mom is a wall that all it's okay, sweetie, and put a bandaid on. And all of that dads will do that too. But we typically will say now, you know, walk it off, run it all. You know, we're the ones that are pushing our children in a positive way to be more than they have been to become all the goddess, purpose them to be, you know, Chicago. And I love to, uh, you know, we, we just zip lining hatchet, throwing together. We do all those kinds of things. I, you know, I'm going to try to take Chicago out to the shooting range some time. Those are probably not things that my wife Kim is going.
Speaker 2 00:12:07 And so, um, I think they're all the father's affirmation, but I also think that it is identification is to help, uh, our children and to help those that we get to pour into, to have an identity, not based in being a copy of the father when Chicago was little people would say, oh, she's just kinda, you look just like your dad. And I thought, I never, I don't think I'll make a pretty girl. Uh, but you know what? She was beautiful. She was feminine, but she had more of my characteristics facially, as she got older, she started looking more and more like Kim, and now she's a good mixture of all that. We want our children to have, um, reflection of who we are, who are our wives are, but ultimately of who God has made them to be. So I see fathers in an affirmation identification. We can look at a lot of different things, but those are two of the key roles. I believe that the voice of the father can bring not only to our children, but in the church world and then from there into our nation and to our culture. Because like you said earlier, we are in an epidemic of fatherlessness in our culture and our nation today.
Speaker 1 00:13:18 Yeah. And that, that epidemic is actually, I mean, it's wreaking havoc on our society in ways that we probably don't even know how to measure. Yeah. The, the, the, you know, I look at, I don't know, it's, it's, it's really sad because, you know, my parents did the best they could do. They're still married. They raised me the best way they could. I honor my parents for what they gave me. I really appreciate them and love them. And I'm thankful that they were able to do the best they could, but I can't even imagine being raised without a father. Like, that's the reality of a lot of the world they're being raised by mom there, you know, and that's cool moms. There's a lot of great moms out there doing single moms. And there's a lot of great dads out there doing single dad work. There's such an attack on the family. I mean, why can't we all just get along? No, the divorce rates and child bearing, it's just the world is crazy.
Speaker 2 00:14:17 Well, I think we have this idea. Um, you know, sometimes there's a romanticized love, you know, we all love romantic love the feelings when we fall in love. We also understand that, uh, when the emotion lifts for the moment, it's not that we can't recapture and have times of that romantic, and I'm not talking about physical sexual right now. I'm talking about the feeling, the romance. Uh, we can have that in our marriages and need to engender that, but we understand commitment is not based on the feeling of the moment and whether it's women. And there's been a greater increase of women leaving marriages over physical, over different things. But some of it is that, um, that, that fairytale expectation that entertainment has caused people to believe that it's always gonna be the, the fireworks romance, um, and there's commitment to it. There's work that goes into being a husband and being a father, being a mother, being a wife, um, then, you know, for men and women.
Speaker 2 00:15:20 But I think especially for men, um, we wanted the fun without the father. We wanted the thrill without the follow-through. We wanted the passion without the parenting. We've wanted sex without stability and all. And so, and so much of that has been in gendered into us by, uh, media, by culture. Uh, and now education, you know, Satan is so overtaken our cultural systems, the entertainment systems, educational systems, the political systems, now that you are not even allowed to question those that just want the thrill of the moment. And so, um, and we all understand this being a man is not the ability to, uh, be a sperm donor and have a child, right? That's not what being a man is being a man is you're going to stick around. You're going to make a commitment. And, and we look at how God does with us.
Speaker 2 00:16:15 He gave his son, he is passionate about us. You know, scripture says that God rejoices over us with singing. You probably know this in the Hebrew. That means God gets such a kick. When he looks at you, when he looks at me, he's in heaven, spinning about, under the influence of a violent emotion. God is in love with us, but he is also committed to me. He's committed to me even when I'm not committed to him. And so if that's how the father in heaven is, that's how I need to be in my relationships with my wife, with my daughter, with my friends, with, you know, the ones that I get to impact, and then hopefully from there into the community. But because we've had a lack of that mud, many times, we have a generation of, of orphans that, you know, may be wonderful people, but they don't know what it is to be father. And so if somebody comes along to love them and affirm them, but then also to adjust them to challenge them, then people want the affirmation, but they don't let the correction. And so with fathering, in fact, what a scripture say, if we are not corrected, we're not actually sons were elicited.
Speaker 1 00:17:29 This God disciplines, those, he loves you. And there's void. You cracked open a big topic there in the whole emotional feeling kind of thing. Because you know, we do live in that culture where everything's feeling based. And I believe that's why divorce is so rampant, right? Because you know, once the feeling wears off and it's not about me anymore, not about how I feel, I'm only going to live so long. So I better, I better get out of this situation versus what you're saying. That the steadfastness of love, you know, love it. Here's a powerful thing. I'm going to write about this because it goes along with the, uh, the five-star charge, the word affection. So it was, um, all my mind is Isaac Isaac. And was it Rebecca when he, uh, she, so I love the phrase. So they went and found Rebecca, they bring her back, they bring her back to meet Isaac.
Speaker 1 00:18:23 He goes into those mother's tent. They consummate the marriage. He's never met her. He goes into consummated the marriage with her, and then they, and it says, and he loved her. So like all he did all the hard work like of loving her. I don't know. I just think it's a pretty powerful image of, they didn't have all the feelings and emotions, somebody else who they're going to be with, but you have to choose to love a person. You know, you have to choose to be there. And so I can't imagine really the pain or even the, the way your life has shaped when you don't have a father. So what are, what's the role of like fathers, the church? I really like how you said God created a family before he created the church. That's a really powerful statement. So God creates a family in this family is supposed to be raising up sons and daughters. So let's talk about that for a moment, like fathering in the Greek commission, like the role of this God's family and the great commission, like how can the church be an asset to the world
Speaker 2 00:19:26 In that arena? Um, I think there's several things. Uh, we could potentially, uh, hit on for me. And I'm going to start this on a personal level. Um, my dad found the Lord when he was young, but he was raised more in religion. It was more about rules than it was about relationship. And so there was not an intimacy with the father. God, it was more serving God out of fear of punishment. And we don't want our sons and daughters being obedient because they're afraid of us. Now we do understand there's a healthy fear of the Lord. And, and you know, that's a whole topic in itself, but we want, we want our children to be obedient because they love us. They want to please us. That's how God wants us to live. There's a healthy fear of the Lord, the respect and understanding that God can destroy body and soul in hell.
Speaker 2 00:20:19 Not that he chooses to desires too, but we, if we choose to rebel, but God wants us to serve him out of love. We love him because he first loved us. Jesus said, if you love me, you can about commandments. Um, but my dad did not have that, that depth of relationship. And, uh, didn't have a good relationship with his father. My dad ran from a call of God on his life. Uh, went into the military and ended up, um, with mental illness, three nervous breakdowns, mental illness. And he medicated is a paranoid schizophrenia. He medicated it with alcohol. And so from the time I was about eight years old to 13 years old on nearly every night, dad was drunk and violent. And so that was the family I grew up in. So I had, I had a father, but it was, um, when he was not drunk.
Speaker 2 00:21:10 And when he was not in his, uh, sick mind, he was a loving man, loved his family, loved God, but the illness and the alcohol. So twisted that. And so I grew up with a fear with anger, with, um, separation, with a lot of other things in that. And honestly, I can tell you, Brian, I'm 58. Now it wasn't till I was about 45 years old, 13 years ago that I really began to discover the father, heart of God. For me, I've been, I've been preaching since I was 15 years old, uh, full time since I was 23 years old. And, and many times I would minister and have my identity and value wrapped up in a gift, the ability to preach or prophesy or pray for the sick or lead somebody to Jesus, or do a big crusades in India or plant churches, help plant churches and, and the underground church in China, whatever it was.
Speaker 2 00:22:05 And I would, I would take value out of what I did, but in 2008, without a long story, several things crumbled on our life. And God had to bring me back to the basics. And that was, he said, Ross, your value is not your ministry. It's not the anointing, your values that you're my son. And they began a really amazing journey, Brian and my life to discover value as a son. And as I began to learn what it meant to be a son to my heavenly father. Now my natural father, God did some healing and our family. He passed away. I think it was about 14 years ago. Now he's with the Lord. He gave it back to the Lord. God did a measure of healing in my family. But over these last 13 years, I've really been pursuing more than preaching and prophesizing and all that, which I love what it means to express the father, heart of God.
Speaker 2 00:23:02 In fact, before we ministered a church and in what we pray, God, what is your heart for this people? So we don't want to stand there in front of a congregation because of a gift or, or, uh, even a calling, but because of the heart of God. So father reveal your heart. To me, one thing I've been learning about this and evangelism because when I was 15 years old, I started as a street evangelist. So I'd be on the street corner, carrying a 10 foot cross. I'd be at Marty Gordon, uh, in, in new Orleans preaching on the streets, New York, Chicago, LA you know, doing all this kinds of stuff. And many times I would just use, you know, the fear of hell, um, the, the darkness of sin to try to get people saved. And, and it's not that people don't respond that some do, but over the years, I've been learning that people that don't know Christ are orphaned.
Speaker 2 00:23:53 They are not sons and daughters, you know, uh, culture will tell us, oh, we're all children of God, right? The biblically, that's not correct. We're all creations of God, but only Jesus gives us the power to become sons and daughters of God. So it's only through Jesus. We actually come into relationship with the father. So the, the role of the father, I think in evangelism is how can we express fathering, love and value for people, even when they're away from God. See, I used to argue with people to get them to say a salvation prayer. But what I learned is this, they have a God-given right as human beings to believe whatever they want to believe. And if they believe the wrong thing, if they believe sin, they believe deception. They have a God-given right to believe that way. I don't have the right to come and take away their right to believe the wrong thing.
Speaker 2 00:24:46 But what I can do is come along with a heart of father God, and say, come on, let's talk, let's get to know one another. And so they're not, they're not just an assignment. They're not just a natural evangelistic belt, but there are people that I hopefully can see through. God's the father's eyes. So, you know, you know, our ministry, a lot of us in the what's called the prophetic, but I, to me, the prophetic revelation is not being able to tell people their address or what they ate for dinner yesterday. That's fine. God will do that sometimes. But more than that, I think God wants to show us the way he looks at people. When I see, when I see somebody out on the street, when I'm, you know, uh, at a restaurant, a gas station, I see a homeless person, uh, begging for money.
Speaker 2 00:25:33 I want to say, father, what do you feel about them? What do you, what is your purpose for them? And, and so if I can reach somebody for Christ, it's not by just telling them you're going to hell, look, the reality of hell is there. I don't take that away, but it's speaking to their God given destiny that the father called them to and they have lost. And so I say, you know, I think the father role could speak into the lives of, of lost people that way. But also to our nation, Brian, our nation has lost our nation is wandering we're in turmoil or in fear, we're in violence where we are disintegrating. We are all, it's going to take a fathering revelation of who God is of some men to arise in every sphere of our culture, to be able to speak truth in love. So our, our nation will rediscover its God ordained identity. America has lost its God-ordained identity. It's going to take fathers to bring back our God-ordained identities and nation.
Speaker 1 00:26:39 Yeah, I agree. And you know, and even right now with everything that's going on or in our country or the whole world is exposing the foundations of the church because I mean, Hey, you know, I love the spectrum is all over the place. I'm not going to say you have to be here or there. I'm just saying, we do need to be on point with the mission of making disciples and looking through a camera like I'm doing right now. Isn't making disciples. Hmm. Um, I'm sorry. You know, it's, uh, I can convey a message. I can resource you. This is not how I would make a disciple necessarily. You know? Um, and discipleship is actually the, the ancient understanding of it is actually fathering, right? You actually poured your life. Like those 12 disciples Christ had, were actually lived with them. I mean, those guys were together all the time, night and day, they traveled together.
Speaker 1 00:27:33 Um, it was th that Jesus modeled fathering. I was asked once in a training, I was in a seminar or whatever, you know, is it wrong to worship Jesus? And you know, obviously the answer is no, it's not wrong because he's the Lord of the kingdom. But the guy was making a point saying, well, who did Jesus? Who did Jesus worship? Jesus let's pay attention to what he modeled. He, he, Jesus was, is restoring us to the father. He's rather focused, you know, and you've done a really great job as kind of talking and unfolding. How God's heart has, is, is set as a father. And he models. I love that about God. He always models at first. And then he asked us, you know, so, um, I guess I, I think a good kind of closing thought process here, and we can take a little time on this, but it's kind of like this concept of the, the, I feel like the church has missed it in the area of, and I'm not saying all programs are bad.
Speaker 1 00:28:34 I've been through some church programs that really helped my life, but we've missed it in the area of where treated programs for, for fathering and mothering. I kind of call father and mother and the lost art of the church. It's like a, it's like an lost art, you know, there's, there's something we need to give back to re rebuilding these ancient runes of, of fathering and mothering. So like, I want to talk about that. The, the concept of the church, um, the fathers, the, the great commission, um, how can, what, what have you seen, what would you say to the church in, in areas of bringing healing to this or getting us back on track?
Speaker 2 00:29:16 Um, Malakai chapter four, God says this before the great and dreadful day of the Lord comes before the Lord returns, which is great for the children of God. It is a terrible day of darkness for those who have rejected Christ and the plagues, the tribulation that will come on the world that says before that happens, God's going to send you Elijah. That is a prophetic anointing, but that Elijah's anointing was to turn the heart of the fathers, to the children and the children, to the fathers. I love that story of Elijah from the time I was 17 years old. And, and, uh, I, you know, first began preaching in church as a 16, 17 years old. I love the story of Elijah. And typically I'd focus on Elijah, Mount chromo, calling down fire, destroying and killing the false prophets with the sword, all of that.
Speaker 2 00:30:04 But then as I began to look into the life of Elijah, Elijah confronted Ahab <inaudible> he confronted a dollar to the system. There were miracles, there were, there was repentance of a nation, but ill, um, Ahab and Jezebel were not dethroned. They stayed in country troll of the nation and the nation ended up back in idolatry. I think much of the way we've done has been so focused on the excitement of the moment, the miracle of the moment, the prophetic word of the moment that Alijah understood something. And he poured himself into a spiritual son named Delilah Elatia arose. And he surpassed Elijah's anointing. What we want to see our natural and our spiritual sons and daughters to do is to surpass our anointing within the church. I think one of the reasons we've had a lack of fathers is because those of us in ministry, if we're not careful, if we're insecure, if we are not healed, you're talking about healing in the church.
Speaker 2 00:31:06 If the leaders are unhealed, then we're going to raise up sons and daughters who are unhealed. So if my son or my daughter spiritually, or naturally begins, so surpass me, I mean, you know, we see it in the natural. When a son can finally beat his dad and basketball or wrestling or whatever it is, um, that, that marks a certain day. And there are some fathers they can't handle that. They always have to be up when a one-upping. And we see that in the church, when we have ministers and leaders, that they will raise people up to a certain degree, but once the son or daughter starts surpassing them and gifting and anointing in ability in the size of their ministry, the influence, the money, then the fathers and mothers sometimes hold them down, push them down. And so I think that's one of the areas.
Speaker 2 00:31:57 So where does healing come? I believe those of us that are already not just because of physical age, 58, but by the call of God, those of us called to be fathers and mothers, we need to get healed. And so I think we need to have fathers and mothers in our life. I'm not going around when I was young, Brian Young and in ministry, anytime I preach for a pastor that had even a little bit of a father's heart, I ended up pouring my heart out. I'd be in a boo-hooing over my past and, and all this other stuff. Cause I wanted, I was unhealed. I wanted a father, right. But I was, I was unhealthy because I was exposing my heart and giving my heart to people that didn't have my heart at interest. But when I began going after the father in heaven, God put natural art. The God put spiritual fathers in our life and brothers that brought healing to the wound
Speaker 1 00:33:01 Oh, I lost Ross here. We're going to back in, in a moment. But yeah, he is actually put, pointed out the whole concept of Malakai. It was prophesied that there's going to come a time when fathers will turn their hearts to the sons and daughters. And that's actually something I was going to bring up. It's kind of wild that, um, he just texts messages and he said his battery died. So hopefully we'll get him back here. But, uh, Russ was touching us some very powerful, it was already on my heart. And it's the concept of turning your hearts, that the scripture says that the, the hearts of the father will turn to the children and the hearts of the children will turn to the father. It doesn't mean anything about it doesn't mean anything about, um, is, or doesn't say anything about a mother having to turn her heart because the mother's heart is already turned to the children from the time they're born.
Speaker 1 00:33:55 And that's kind of like one of the things like, but when a father turns his heart to the children, this is what the family that we're talking about. This is what the church has to do is we have to turn our hearts. So I believe discipleship is the answer making disciples. The great commission of making disciples is the answer. So I've got to use my dining room table, right? My backyard barbecue, my, my, my fire pits, all that kind of stuff. I've got to, I've got to actually use the stuff God's given me to invite people into this place. Rusted a good job at pointing out how people chase the momentary stuff. And I see far too much of that in our, in my, I'm not saying in my church necessarily, but in the church culture at large people are chasing moments. They're chasing miracles.
Speaker 1 00:34:49 And I stopped those people. Sometimes I go, Hey, who are you discipling? They're like deer in headlights. Uh, I don't know. I'm not trying to pick on the church because this has been something that's been broken for a long time. But as a believer, as a father, I had to do something. I'm going to share this real quick. You probably heard me talk about this form, very passionate about this. But I had to actually learn when I was 17, 18, 19, I read the scriptures, Proverbs 24 with wise counsel, you can wage your war. And I was like, man, I've got to have some fathers. I've got to have some counsel in my life. And I just kind of had this thing built in me. I just built a council of three to five people. Who've been doing it my whole life. And then over the last couple of decades.
Speaker 1 00:35:33 So those people changed here and there, but I've always had a wise counsel of that. I could run big lifetime, big decisions by, um, even prophetic words, things like that. Hey, what do you think about this? Give me some insight. Give me some, some feedback. And it's always been, um, something that's very S has been so powerful for me to steer my life, but to keep me in my assignments too, because when you have a war council, if you will, that's kind of helps you seal a decision when all hell breaks out in your wanting to quit that assignment. You go back to those, those people. You go back, you remember that? Like, oh no, this was from God. I know I heard from God. So I'm going to, I'm going to stick it out. This is a good war to fight. This is a good battle to fight. But men, we want to encourage you to engage the battle of fathering.
Speaker 1 00:36:29 I had to identify spiritual fathers. I have four or five of them in my life right now. They don't call me every day. I don't call them every day. It's not, it's not like, uh, they all, most, all of them live away, but I stay strategically in front of them. I keep them in front of me. We have deep, powerful relationships, but I had to identify them. And I just want to give some coaching here because a spirit, if a man comes up to you and says, or an older guy or whatever, and he's like, I want to be your spiritual father. That's a little creepy, right? It's just a little creepy. No one talks that way. It would probably throw your guards up. Like dude, you're, you're weird. So it's, I think it's important for the sons to identify the fathers. It's important for the sons to like me.
Speaker 1 00:37:17 So this the guys I say, Hey, you're like a spiritual father to me. Um, that's a big, that's me saying, Hey, I, that's a big, you're pretty big, big deal in my world and your voice. So this is why I love their voice releases. Affirmation. Their voice helps steer things, spiritual fathers in my life, see things on the assignment of my life and they speak into it and they help me. They help propel me in the right direction or keep me on track. It's very powerful. So I identified my spiritual fathers and it's important for us to do that. It gives them a place of honor and it gives them, um, it allows their voice to be used. Now I say that every believer needs to engage making disciples. Okay. And as I close this, we have a very powerful thing in our culture called the five star charge.
Speaker 1 00:38:14 You can go on our website, you can read about it. I'm getting ready to write more and more resources about the five-star charge. I'm getting excited about it about even just building it out, writing a book, two books, whatever writing resources, and just keeping this charge amped up and electrified in our lives. So if you want to grow fathering, you want to grow and in affirming your children and allowing your voice to speak in a powerful way, engaged the five-star charged because it's all about honoring God. It's all about living with affection, to your, with your children, your loved ones, even your enemies. It's all about walking in the Liberty of Christ. It's about being a man of war, a man who goes after the heart, in the presence of God and then living out a life of valor. It's a powerful thing. Thank you for being with us today. It's been an honor on until next time live upright.
