I grew up fatherless, but met the Father, and through the grace of the Lord Jesus and His sacrificial death I was adopted into His family. I met the perfect Father who longs to adopt every person, regardless of challenges in their own family situation. We live in a fatherless nation and a fatherless world. Jesus said, “If you’ve seen Me, you’ve seen the Father.” If we are, as the New Testament proclaims, “the body of Christ” and if we move in holy harmony, connected to one another in supernatural unity and submitted to the head, Christ Himself, we will reveal the Father to a fatherless world. When the church does this, the fatherless should run to the church to see the Father, know Him, and love Him.
God has placed in my heart a love for Him and a love for my neighbors. Words fail to communicate how deeply I love you and how the Father loves you. Please understand, it is because of this love for the Father and for you that we launched The Stream. It is in harmony with the proclamation in Psalm 46:4, “There is a river whose streams make glad the city of God.” This is a river fed by tributaries of love and wisdom to produce the fruitfulness that God has challenged us all to bring forth. I encourage you to go to The Stream today, and if possible, every day, to see breaking news that matters to those who love God and understand the importance of faith and freedom.
Remember, Galatians 1 says, “It was for freedom Christ set you free!” That certainly refers specifically to the personal freedom to be found in Christ. As He said, “If you abide in Me and my Word is in you, you will know the truth and the truth will set you free!” (John 8) The freedom He offers benefits even those who do not have knowledge or understanding of the truth. Freedom is like the rain. It falls on the just and the unjust, and brings forth fruitfulness, productivity, and potential prosperity and well-being for the recipients. I am 72 years old. I have experienced the miraculous blessings of personal freedom through the knowledge of Christ and the glorious deliverance that He offered to me, a highly visible preacher, who experienced marvelous deliverance after being defeated. In the busyness of ministry I had left my first love. I began to go to the Scriptures to get sermons for others, but failed to get life for myself. God gloriously set me free more than 30 years ago and sent me on a journey to proclaim the salvation offered in Christ, and the freedom that is available. This does not mean that we are not ever defeated again; we are actually freed to the fight. With the whole armor of God and with His oversight and wisdom, we can win!
It is because of the freedom we have been offered in Christ and been blessed to experience that I have deep concern for you and for every person in this great nation and the world. We are seeing an all-out assault on faith and freedom, and we are about to lose the freedom we’ve been blessed to experience in America if the people who understand the true source of freedom in Christ do not stand together like that city set on a hill that cannot, will not, and must not be hidden.
Please consider making The Stream your home page. Go there every day to get “understanding of the times” and the challenges we face. Great leaders with commitment to God who are full of faith, truth, and wisdom are feeding that wisdom and insight into The Stream for the glory of God and the benefit of every person who reads it. Today you can hear Jay Richards speaking at the Family Research Council, and read articles by John Zmirak. My close friend Dudley Hall has a brief inspirational piece that is important. Please go to The Stream today and share it with others.