The Power of Receiving the Love of the Father

We all need a place to come home to—physically, emotionally, and spiritually—an unchanging, trustworthy refuge. For the Believer, this place is the love of the Father. We’re meant to live out of this place of love and communion with God. This is how we are healed, restored, and reinstated in our true identity and Kingdom purpose. 

Receiving the love of the Father transforms us into the likeness of Jesus and overflows into our relationships, marriages, parenting, and lifestyle. The Father’s love is the epicenter of our walk as Believers. It is not exclusive to a single experience but something we continue to receive and grow into as we open our hearts to more of God and greater healing.

Separated and Restored | The Father’s Love in Salvation

In the Garden of Eden, sin rendered us exiles. We became spiritual orphans separated from our Father. Jesus came to ransom us, rescue us from sin and death, and restore us back to the Father’s heart. This is the essence of the gospel! 

Like salvation, the Father’s love is a free gift. It cannot be earned. His love is unconditional, consistent, everlasting, and secure. Receiving His love is like a homecoming for your heart. 

Galatians tells us the Spirit of Jesus is within the hearts of Believers with a very specific mission: He’s crying out, “Abba, Father.”

• “And because you are sons [and daughters], God has sent forth the Spirit of His Son into your hearts, crying out, ‘Abba, Father!’” –Galatians 4:6 (emphasis added)

The Spirit of Jesus testifies with your spirit that you belong to God. His desire is for you to deeply experience and live in the love He and the Father know. This should do away with any notion that God the Father is distant—He is intimate, patient, holy, engaged, righteous, perfect, and intentional. To save you and heal you, He makes His home within you! 

• “Jesus answered and said to him, “If anyone loves Me, he will keep My word; and My Father will love him, and We will come to him and make Our home with him.” –John 14:23 (emphasis added)

We come home to the Father, and the Father makes His home in us, loving us with the same love He loves Jesus! Jesus says He loves us with the same love the Father loves Him (John 15:9). 

This is the joyful union we’re invited to join in and must join in to be restored mind, body, and spirit and reinstated in our Kingdom mission. Jesus speaks of this lifegiving union in the gospel of John:

• “I have given them the glory that You gave Me, that they may be one just as We are one: I in them, and You in Me; that they may be made perfect in one, and that the world may know that You have sent Me, and have loved them as You have loved Me.” –John 17:22-23 (emphasis added)

This love and union is miraculous, mysterious, and deeply beautiful. It is our refuge, a safe place to turn to and remain in (John 15). Being loved like this is the essence of well-being. It’s what is being offered to you. But why is it often so difficult to receive this love? 

Breaking Past the Barriers | Emotional Wounding and Spiritual Warfare 

The dominion of darkness deeply opposes your restoration. Just as God is at war for you, Satan is at war against you. His purposes thrive when we are separated from the Father or feel we are separated. He plots through painful experiences and agreements to keep us far from receiving the Father’s love. 

Orphan Spirit

The orphan spirit (often in partnership with the spirit of rejection and fear) is an oppressive spirit that makes you feel you are abandoned and always will be. Or that if you’ve found some sense of love and community, you’re sure to lose it. 

This tormenting spirit causes deep distrust to be formed between you and God and often other people. It can be passed down through generational curses and life experiences of abandonment that speak the lie, “You will always be alone.”

Fatherlessness

Fatherlessness in the world has been referred to by many as an “epidemic.” Whether your father was absent, abusive, neglectful, or simply doing his best amid his own brokenness, there is a deep need for healing and forgiveness. 

The same is true for mothers or any parent figure you grew up with–there were ways imperfect people failed you, and agreements were made in young places. Jesus wants you to invite Him into your emotional life and memories for His interpretation of your story. 

He comes to these places gently and only with your permission. He may lead you to a defining moment where you felt humiliation, fear, shame, or anger and decided…

• Nobody likes me. 
• There’s something wrong with me. 
• I mess everything up. 
• I’m invisible. 
• I’ll never be loved.
• I’m alone.

We can carry these agreements for years, and the spirits of rejection, fear, and orphan spirit latch on, consistently arranging for more experiences to validate these underlying lies. 

These are heavy places to revisit and often sacred territory. Jesus will lead you at the pace right for you. Healing is a process, and God often heals slowly. But it’s important to understand that it’s not your fault if you’re struggling to receive God’s love. 

Spiritual warfare and emotional scars have raised walls in your heart, but the Father is at war for you, tearing down each wall, breaking every chain, and defeating every lie as you invite Him in. One memory, agreement, or supernatural shift at a time, He is determined to bring you back to Himself, restoring you to who you truly are in Him.

Prayer to Release Forgiveness and Receive God’s Love

When you are ready, as the Holy Spirit leads, you can pray something like this–

Dear Abba Father,

I release my parents [caretaker, parent figure] to you. You know our story; you know their pain and the pain they passed down. I choose to forgive them, and I invite you into my wounding.  Please reveal where I made unholy agreements about myself and You based on my past. 

I renounce all agreements with demonic spirits that have kept me in darkness [name them as the Holy Spirit reveals them]. Remove every veil from my eyes so I can see You and experience You as You are. I bring the fragmented parts of my heart to You to be made whole in Your love.

Show me how You were there all along, fighting for me and loving me even before I knew You. Show me Your interpretation of my life story and expose the lies I’ve been believing. I come into Your love for refuge, healing, and restoration. I choose to receive Your fathering.

In Yeshua’s Name,

Amen

Love That Transforms Us

There is no one certain way to experience the Father’s love. He comes for His people uniquely, personally, and maybe when least expected. But one thing for certain is that the love of God changes us and transforms us into the people we were meant to be. 

The Father’s Love…

Heals Us and Is Our Refuge

We need security to begin to heal. In an insecure world with fragmented pieces, the Father’s love is our refuge. To process our story and recover from the broken parts in the areas where we received abuse or neglect, we need a new experience of what should have been. Often, we don’t know what we’ve been missing until we experience it. God’s love heals us and is the safest place for healing.

Makes Us More Like Jesus

Jesus is secure in the Father’s love. He operated in the fullness of His mission through the Father’s empowerment. He came to reveal the Father to us and said He did nothing without Him (John 14:9, John 5:19). To be like Jesus is to know that we need our Father, to trust Him, depend on Him, and receive His love.

Blesses Our Marriages and Relationships

When we are healed and become more like Jesus, the overflow is healthier marriages and relationships. We no longer have an emptiness we are desperate for others to fill. This corrects unrealistic expectations and enables us to love people from a place of already being perfectly loved. Challenges still come, but we can bring our pain and need to the Father first, receiving His care and the strength to re-engage, forgive, and reconcile in our relationships. 

Guides Our Parenting 

When God heals our childhood wounds, and we are fathered by Him, we pass down healthy parenting to our children. When we know we are perfectly loved, our personality and sense of well-being reflect that love to our children. 

No matter our childhood experiences, we can be healed to pass down a new legacy to the next generation. The goal is not perfection (that’s not possible this side of Heaven) but to have hearts that continue to turn to God for emotional healing so we are more healed and whole for our family.

Secures Our Identity and Calling

When we are secure in the Father’s love, we know our identity is in Him, not in what we do. This is a process to surrender continually, but it protects us from the pitfalls of comparison and competition with others.

In our professional lives, calling, and ministry, we can love others authentically, truly expressing who we are, knowing our value is not in our gifting. This frees us to follow the Holy Spirit and live out our Kingdom mission secure in the Father’s love, not measuring our worth by the outcome of assignments or our perception of what others think of us. 

Ask and Receive

All of this and more is available. You were created to live and move and have your being in the love of the Father. His love is real, constant, and unconditional. May you open your heart to Him and come to know Him better, day by day, as Paul prayed:

• “I keep asking that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the glorious Father, may give you the Spirit of wisdom and revelation, so that you may know him better.” –Ephesians 1:17 

The Father is not angry or distant. As you call upon Him, He will answer you. May every spiritual veil be removed from your eyes so you may grasp how wide, long, high, and deep His love is (Ephesians 3:18-19). May you receive the transformation He offers, choose Him as your refuge, and become whole and fully alive in Him.