The Father‘s House Orlando: Recent Episodes
The Father‘s House Orlando
The Father‘s House Orlando is a growing collection of house churches. We are family on mission. Making disciples. Planting churches. Living for revival and the return of the Lord.
Michael shares with Habitation Church about the knowledge of God that is revealed to us in the place of loving obedience. God cannot just be researched, He must be revealed. And, He must decide to reveal Himself. God chooses what of Himself He desires to be known. He is gracious and outrageously kind, and chooses to unveil Himself to those who partner with His grace to love Him and obey Him.
Special emphasis on Philippians 3:7-10, Paul shares that because of the way God revealed Himself to Him, his whole life was transformed and reconfigured. You would never be able to understand Paul, and his jealousy to love and obey the Lord, unless you understood the way that God revealed Himself to Paul. Here is the connection— revelation should produce subjection.
Our desire must be the knowledge of God— To know the Lord intimately, relationally, and experientially. Not to know of Him— information about Him, but to be immersed into union that produces a greater yielding and freedom to love Him and obey Him.
God desires to have a people for Himself that would be a holy possession. This desire is clear from the very beginning of the biblical narrative and remains throughout the timeline as we know it.
In this session, Michael shares with Habitation Church particular insights taken from Deuteronomy 1-8, Numbers 13-14, and Acts 13 about our primary identity as the people of God, God’s purpose in our planting together in a way of life together that would “build His house” in our city, and then God’s heart to assign and commission people locally and abroad into a missional demonstration.
“Whether you are released or remain, the goal is the same— build and become a habitation for God.
God longs to dwell in the midst of a people that are wholly His. His prescription for that is a way of life that creates a context that is most conducive for His abiding.
In this session, Michael shares from Acts 2:37-47 and Acts 13:1-3 on 9 key components for a living habitation.
A habitat is the natural environment of an organism; the place that is natural for the life and growth of an organism. It is the place where a person or thing is usually found.
God desires a habitat for Him to walk in the cool of the day among a people that are His.
God has promised Jesus a people conformed to His image. Together, they will be the Bride of Christ. This Bride, the Church, will be a people from every tribe, nation, and tongue, across every generation of human history. This people, His comparable companion, will be His inheritance.
In this session, Michael shares on the importance of God getting what He is after from the people that have been purchased with the blood of His Son.
God is after a “what,”— a people conformed to the image of His Son. But, there is also a “way” that He is going to get that, and something that we can do about it to invest into what Jesus has been promised.
With an emphasis on Numbers 9, Ephesians 1-4, and John 17, Michael shares on how you can make an investment into the inheritance of Jesus in a practical way.
The Church is a people that have been purchased with the blood of God’s Son— Jesus Christ. They are a people redeemed from the influence of rulers and powers, and the corruption of the domain of darkness. They have been born again, now housing a divine life— The Holy Spirit— who is radically and dynamically working within them to align them to God in an intimate way, and to His purposes in an ongoing way. The church is a family of new creatures.
In this session, Michael considers God’s desire to have a people He can share Himself with and the lengths that He goes to in order to reveal the habitat that is most conducive to fulfill that desire. Context matters. And there is a context most conducive to God having a resting place, a habitation, for Him to walk in the cool of the day amongst His people.
God longs to tabernacle with us; He wants to do life with us.
With an emphasis on Leviticus, Michael shares the heart of an ongoing way of life together that provides God with the environment, the habitat, for God to abide.
The Scriptures are filled with story after story of people in impossible situations who put their trust in the Living God. From Abraham having a name that did not fit his natural circumstances to Rahab being remembered for the faith, she showed in one moment. We see the hope they had that God could completely change their situation in his perfect timing.
Prayer that moves mountains because with a heart of integrity before God and before one another.
Bob lays out several points as a progression in prayer that will help the people of God to become a house of prayer as God desires.
Prayer is—
Digging Delighting Depending Doing
We will need to be a powerful people in prayer if we are to become a people who do powerful works of God.
All powerful work for God is first preceded by powerful and prophetic prayer.
We must become a Spirit people who are gripped with a revelation that Jesus is returning. At times it is easy to lose sight of the way we live our lives on the earth today will have an impact in eternity.
In Acts 1, just before Jesus’ ascension, He commands the disciples to wait in Jerusalem for the baptism of the Spirit. He ascended, and while they were gazing into the sky, two men appeared and told them, the same way you saw Him leave, He will one day return.
The power of the Holy Spirit and the reality of His soon-coming return to reign on the earth should shape our lives practically. The Spirit helps us to live like Jesus and lay down our lives to be His witnesses on earth.
We live in a day and age that constantly bombards us with self-help motivational quotes, steps to reaching your destiny, or some magic recipe to improve yourself. As we work to be a people that Jesus desires in our city, we are trying to remain faithful to the Scriptures.
Jesus says anyone that wants to follow him must first deny themselves, pick up their cross and then follow up. This is the only method proven to produce a people filled with God and therefore find their destiny in Him.
There are no other means that God has ordained to get the people he desires. A people who embrace the cross. A people of character, integrity, and supernatural power. We learn to let Jesus take his rightful place as Lord and King of our lives by denying ourselves and carrying our cross.
The Father is readying a people for Jesus that have been conformed to His image. A people that have been wildly possessed by the Holy Spirit and have been empowered by grace to become lovingly subject to the leadership of Jesus in every possible way.
There are 2 areas where the Spirit is creating an emphasis for us in this season as we desire to be a Jesus People— a people who are fully His and have been conformed to His image.
Authenticity— living in the reality of a transformed nature fueled and governed by Divine life; The Spirits work within us to conquer every attempt for us to live in response to what is happening to me instead of in response to what God is doing in me.
Subjectivity— living in subjection to the word of God. Not just loving the Bible but living the Bible, consistently through sorrow and celebration, trials and triumphs, worries and wonders. The hammer, which is the word of God, and the chisel, which is life circumstance, working together to conform me to the image of the One who is the Word made flesh.
For our Resurrection Sunday gathering Michael Dow shared a word with us from John 18-19.
"There is a Barabbas that lives on the inside of each of us."
"The crowd put pressure on Pilate to free Barabbas externally; Jesus was crucified and laid down His life to set Barabbas free internally."
"'Bar-Abba' means Son of the Father. They shouted, 'Give us Barabbas,' because they better identified with him. The murderer filled with brokenness, pain, weakness, insecurity, corruption. Humanity has always been confronted by what it sees in God and has desired to make Him more like them so they can feel better about the things that need to be changed."
Take a listen, enjoy!
Bryan and Mindy Jackson came to join us and speak to our church family during a corporate gathering.
Bryan released a word of God's grace to us to strengthen those who have said yes to the Lord and His way of the wilderness.
May your heart find the much needed encouragement to know that God is good and His ways have been tested and are good. He is producing an authentic and powerful people conformed to the image of His Son. This end goal requires the way of the wilderness.
Enjoy!
Allen Hood came to join us to teach in the prayer room.
He shared his heart from his own journey and how the Lord is in this season leading him into a greater experience of His grace to establish him as an example to the community of saints.
God chooses those who are unqualified, and then despite their deficiencies, continues to display His grace to them, thus establishing brokenness and dependency on the person of God, His grace, and His power. This authenticity and vulnerability makes one an example to a community and provides a much needed pathway to freedom for those bound in a performance driven and religious facade driven space.
Enjoy!
Anna Dow shared a word with all of us out of Jeremiah 31:1-26.
As our churches came together she released a prophetic exhortation and encouragement that hinged on 5 points:
Wilderness Way Captivity to Community Praise and Planting Watchmen and Weepers Reward and Restoration
David Popovici was with us for a corporate gathering of our church and shared a powerful word from Mark chapter 4.
In this moment of human history the church bears the responsibility of sifting through the challenges before us to connect with God in a real and deep way.
There is more opportunity for distraction and connectivity to other things than there has ever been.
Evil is rising, but so is the Church; the wheat and the tares are maturing at the same time.
Robert Gladstone shares on God's Sabbath Rest.
Living our lives in and from God's divine rest is critical to the quality and power of life that we experience.
Bob shares 4 key points for entering into God's rest:
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Revelation
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Relationships
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Rhythm
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Restoration
Enjoy!
What makes Jesus beautiful to you?
Isaiah 53:2, "My servant grew up in the LORD’s presence like a tender green shoot, like a root in dry ground. There was nothing beautiful or majestic about his appearance, nothing to attract us to him."
Nothing beautiful about His appearance to attract us to him?
Jesus is not beautiful because He fits the cultural demands or pressures for what they say is beautiful. The system of the world has a way, a sway, a current, a pattern to it. It is headed a specific direction and attempting, through a discipleship effort, to pull as many people into the current as it possibly can. If we are not careful, and discerning, we end up getting conditioned by this discipleship agenda and very easily end up despising certain things that actually are a part of the beauty of God's makeup- His characteristics.
God is humble.
Let's gaze deeply into the beauty of God's humility.
Jesus is the great eternal intercessor (Heb 7:25).
God partners with His people through prayer.
Could it be that the pressure of your season is designed to push you to pray?
Hannah allowed her frustration in her season to push her into intercession. Out of this intercession came the prayer (vow) that radically birthed God's desires in her life (1 Sam 1:11).
Moses spent 40 years on the backside of the wilderness. When God encounters him in the burning bush, Moses prays out the prayer that rearranged his life and aligned him with the word of the Lord for His life.
Do not allow your the pressure and pain of your season to be in vain. Channel it into intercession. Meet with God in the place of prayer.
The pressure could be exactly what is going to produce the prayer that connects your life with God's purpose!
The citizens of the Kingdom should have the character of the King. And when our lives get lived in relationship to others and circumstances there should be a demonstration of the transformation that the Spirit has made real in us.
Our character is best experienced when we interact with others and with the situations that life will deliver to us.
The Father is longing to have a people in the earth that are the product of the Spirit's power to produce them into the image of the Son, Jesus.
God wants you to look like His Son. He is conforming you to His image. The version of you that God is looking for is a version that has been radically reconfigured, from the inside out, to be more like Jesus. He's not interested the best version of you that you can make, He longs for you to be more like His Son.
Paul releases an epic invitation in 1 Corinthians 4:16. He suggests to them that his life was something worthy to be modeled. Paul's implication by the invitation was that God believed in the way that his own life had been and was being transformed. Paul invitation was unto transformation, a way of life that would produce the results of the desires that God has in His heart to make a people more like His Son, Jesus.
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Paul didn't just have a gift that flowed, he had a life worthy to be followed.
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Paul saw his own transformation as one of the means that God would bring transformation to others.
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Paul's life was planted in a family setting, where his life was wide open and on display, and it was here that the invitation was given to follow him.
Join in and listen to see how we too can be encouraged for God to do something in us in order to establish a pattern for those around us!