Have you ever thought about where love comes from? If you have, you probably assume it comes from God. And you’d be right. It does. But God has never been a lonely being who existed by Himself before He created anything. For one thing, He is eternal, which means He is outside of time. Technically, there is no “before” with God.

But there’s another reason God has never been by Himself. In the beginning, there was (and still is) a family: the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. And this family is not only the perfect expression of love. This family is love.1 So when we think about where love originally came from, it isn’t from the heart of a God that lives by Himself. It’s from the heart of a divine relationship, even from the start. It’s a family kind of love that is more perfect than we can possibly imagine.

When we understand this perfect family love, the whole idea of an angry, critical God that so many people have begins to fall apart. 

I spent much of my life thinking of God as very stern and authoritative, as though He was always focused on my faults. No matter how hard I tried, I assumed that His priority for me was to improve me in whatever areas I was falling short. I always felt like I needed to get cleaned up and put everything in order before He could really use me and relate to me. In my mind, He always seemed a little frustrated with His people—and specifically with me.

But love doesn’t focus on those flaws and shortcomings. 

God wants the best for us, but the best begins with delight and adoration. Anger doesn’t produce the best in people. Kindness and compassion do.

So this family is not angry by nature. The Father, Son, and Spirit are not frustrated. They don’t sit around talking about how bad things are or how disappointed they are. There has never been any jealousy or competition in this family. No striving for rights, no complaints about injustice, no bickering about who gets what.

No member of this family has ever wondered, “Why don’t I get to be like Him? Why do You give Him more than You give Me? When do I get My turn?” Can you imagine what would happen if you asked the Father, the Son, or the Spirit which one of them was most important? How would they answer? I can’t imagine any of them stepping up and claiming to be in first place. I think they would all point to one another.

None of these family members has ever felt disconnected or distant from another, simply because They are one. You can’t have disconnection and distance in a three-in-one person.

Because of this perfect unity, no member of this family has ever felt insecure or needed more attention or affirmation. No one has tried to pose as someone He isn’t in order to make Himself feel better. None has ever had to develop coping skills or needed healing from emotional wounds. None has ever worried that love will run out.

The Father, Son, and Spirit are an eternal family with an eternal love. But beings with eternal love can’t be content to keep it to themselves. The beauty of love is always realized in its expression and demonstration. It doesn’t sit still. It looks for someone who can receive all its wonderful blessings.

The perfect love of this divine family is expressed and celebrated. It is always perfect and always flowing freely. It is always unbreakable but always determined to fulfill one another’s desires and purposes, which are in complete harmony. It’s constant but always moving, never seasonal but always looking for seasons of opportunity and growth, fully satisfied but always hungry for more.

And in all those truths—those paradoxes of perfect love—it longs for expression. Love seeks manifestations, looking for ways to bring others in. If perfect love is selfless, it will find a way to turn toward other selves. That’s the nature of our triune God. His Kingdom exists because of love and for love because He is love. The culture of this Kingdom is thoroughly shaped by the unbreakable union of the divine family, the perfect environment. And everything in His Kingdom, whether visible or invisible, eternal or temporal, overwhelmingly beautiful or ordinary and mundane, exists because of love.

Every good thing finds its source in love.

Every good thing is sustained by love, or more specifically, by the One who is love, the Father who loves perfectly.

And all of His attributes find their fullness and perfection in love. That tells us a lot about ourselves. If every good thing is sourced by and sustained by love, and we are a “very good” thing (Genesis 1:31), then we find our source, our sustenance, and our reason for being in this foundation of love.

We’ll talk more about creation soon, but just think for a moment about the fact that human beings exist because of love. The first verse of the Bible says, “In the beginning God…” (Genesis 1:1), and if God is love, we are justified in reading that verse as, “In the beginning love….”

Many Christians are still very focused on sin and brokenness, even though these are exactly the problems Jesus came to heal us from. And I know from experience that when you are

focused on sin and brokenness, you have a tendency to see God as angry and authoritative, maybe with His arms crossed or His head shaking in disapproval. I did, so I understand what that’s like. You see a God who is hard to please.

That is not the picture of God that the Bible gives us. This is not the heart behind creation. This was no part of the heavenly family’s love. Before the foundation of the world, there was love. And if you read Scripture carefully, you’ll see that this is when the remedy for sin was already planned. God chose us “before the foundation of the world” to be holy and blameless in Jesus (Ephesians 1:4). Looking ahead over all the rebellion in the world into each of our lives, even before it all happened, God said yes to love.

This is what our Father’s heart looks like. This is the picture He gives us. Before the world was made, it was already in God’s mind to bring created beings into the fellowship of the divine family. He was motivated to express His true nature—not only within the Trinity but far beyond it. So love went to work to create a beautiful, harmonious, joyful expression of His goodness. In other words, this world exists because God wanted to make His love visible.

This blog is an excerpt from The Love Awakening book. Learn more about the book HERE. 

Over 50 million people. One of history’s most unconquered peoples. And still, largely unreached.

The Pashtuns span Afghanistan and Pakistan, united by language, Islamic faith, and a fierce code of honor called Pashtunwali. They have outlasted every empire that ever tried to subdue them—the British, the Soviets, and others before them. Entire armies have broken against these mountains and gone home defeated. And for centuries, the gospel has faced the same extraordinary resistance in their lands.

So why? Why has one of the largest unreached people groups in the world remained so resistant to the gospel for so long? I shared six reasons recently with my weekly email list, and I want to unpack them more fully here because understanding the why is the first step toward becoming part of the how.

1. Intense Spiritual Warfare

This is not primarily a strategy problem or a resources problem. The enemy fights harder to keep the Pashtun in darkness than almost any other people group I’ve encountered, and I believe it’s because he knows what’s at stake. A move of God among the Pashtun would send ripples across the entire Muslim world. That’s worth fighting for. Which means it’s also worth contending for in prayer.

2. Honor and Shame Culture

In the West, we tend to think of conversion as a private, internal decision. Among the Pashtun, it’s never private, and it’s rarely just individual. To leave the Islamic faith is to leave your family, your tribe, and your generational identity in one motion. The decision not only leads to a change of belief, but it could also mean total displacement. A Pashtun who follows Jesus risks losing the very fabric of who they are in the eyes of everyone they’ve ever known. We have to reckon honestly with the weight of what we’re asking people to carry, and build the kind of relationships that can hold that weight with them.

3. A Western Gospel That Doesn’t Connect

Much of our evangelism was shaped in cultures wired around guilt and innocence. We lead with sin, guilt, and personal forgiveness. But Pashtun culture, like much of the honor-shame world, is wired differently. The driving questions aren’t “Am I guilty or innocent?” but “Am I honored or shamed? Do I belong, or am I cast out?” Here’s the beautiful truth: Jesus covers both. The cross deals with our guilt and restores our honor. But when we only preach half the gospel, we’re offering people an answer to a question they’re not asking while leaving unanswered the one that actually haunts them. We need a fuller gospel for a fuller need.

4. Broken Trust with the West

History doesn’t disappear just because we’d like it to. Five world powers have attempted to subdue the Pashtun people, and every single one has failed. That legacy of invasion, occupation, and broken promises means that Western missionaries, however well-intentioned, often begin the relationship already in debt. Trust isn’t given here. It’s earned, slowly, and it starts with humility about what our nations have represented in this region long before we ever arrived.

5. Event-Based vs. Generational Thinking

We in the West love a campaign. A conference. A short-term trip with measurable outcomes we can report on when we get home. But the Pashtun don’t measure relationships in weeks or months, they measure them in generations. A short-term project, however sincere, can look to a Pashtun observer like it’s hiding an agenda—because in a culture where committed presence is everything, a quick exit signals that the relationship was never the real point. If we want to be trusted, we have to be willing to stay. Reaching this people group isn’t a project to complete. It’s a relationship to build over decades.

6. Geography and a Hostile Environment

On top of all of this, there is the sheer physical difficulty of the terrain. Pashtun regions are remote, mountainous, difficult to access, and genuinely high-risk. Sustained, long-term presence requires more than good intentions. It requires people willing to endure real hardship, real danger, and real isolation for the sake of a people who have rarely, if ever, had someone stay.

Understanding the Region: Azad Kashmir and Pakistan

Azad Kashmir sits on the western edge of the broader, long-disputed Kashmir region—territory that has been contested between Pakistan and India since partition in 1947. Administered by Pakistan, it is mountainous, remote, and shaped by decades of political tension along a militarized line of control. That geography alone makes it one of the harder places in South Asia for sustained ministry presence to take root.

Layered onto that geography is a religious and social landscape that is overwhelmingly conservative and Islamic, with very little historical exposure to the gospel. Christians in the wider Pakistan, including Azad Kashmir, make up a small minority, often concentrated in lower economic tiers of society, and they live daily with realities most Western believers never have to consider.

Challenges Christians Face in Pakistan and Azad Kashmir

A few of the realities facing the Christian minority in this region:

Blasphemy laws. Pakistan’s blasphemy statutes carry severe penalties, including the death penalty, for perceived insults to Islam or the Prophet Muhammad. These laws are frequently used—sometimes on flimsy or fabricated grounds—to target Christians, settle personal disputes, or seize property, leaving the accused with little legal protection and, often, no safe way to defend themselves.

Mob violence and attacks on churches. Accusations of blasphemy have repeatedly sparked mob violence against entire Christian communities. In our personal network in Pakistan, there have been homes burned, churches destroyed, and families displaced overnight based on unproven allegations. These are not isolated incidents; they are a recurring pattern that keeps Christian communities living under a constant, low-grade fear.

Forced conversion and marriage. Christian and other minority girls and young women are at heightened risk of abduction, forced conversion to Islam, and forced marriage—crimes that are widely under-reported and rarely prosecuted.

Social and economic marginalization. Christians in Pakistan are frequently relegated to the lowest-status jobs in society, facing discrimination in employment, education, and everyday civic life. Poverty and lack of access to legal recourse compound the vulnerability created by the other factors above.

Political and legal vulnerability. In a region already strained by the Kashmir conflict, religious minorities have even less political capital and even fewer avenues for protection or justice than Christians elsewhere in Pakistan.

Taken together, these realities mean that Christians in Azad Kashmir and across Pakistan don’t simply face spiritual resistance, they face structural, legal, and physical risk simply for identifying with Jesus. Any lasting gospel movement here has to reckon honestly with what it costs local believers to stand firm and has to be built by outsiders willing to walk alongside that cost rather than around it.

Partner with Global Mission Awareness to reach the unreached HERE.

I traveled to Pakistan in 2019 for an assignment in an area where the gospel had not been preached for centuries. I had spent six months planning for the trip, and our ministry put a six-figure investment into all the preparations. Then I and my team began to get hit. Conflict between Pakistan and India broke out, and flights were cancelled due to the threat of violence. Our venue looked like it was in the middle of a war zone. I also had ongoing health issues, and I kept hearing the enemy’s lies that I wasn’t going to make it—to Pakistan or even to survival. It is hard to describe all the warfare that went on, but I got very discouraged. I felt beaten up.

When all the flights were cancelled, I was told by airlines and travel agencies that there was no way to get to Pakistan. But I still felt I was supposed to go. I knew it was a divine assignment, and I knew that opposition is not a sign of God’s will. When God wants to redirect us, He doesn’t do it by beating us up, depressing us, or empowering our adversaries. I was sure this trip was His will.

I eventually found a creative (and very expensive) way to get there by flying into another country, where I would wait and try to purchase tickets for Pakistan from that airport. But in the days leading up to the trip, and even on the way to the airport, people would ask: “Are you sure you’re supposed to go?” I arrived in the nearby country and waited until a flight opened up, and I was very grateful when it did. I was at least going to get into Pakistan. But a storm followed me into the country. When I landed in Islamabad, I had slept very little in the past four days and was exhausted. As my hosts drove me to the cricket stadium we had rented, our vehicle broke down in the middle of nowhere as rain pounded down on us. We eventually got to the stadium and found that it was flooded. We never got to have that meeting. All of the planning seemed wasted. All of our investment was lost. I was devastated.

My mind was filled with questions. Were all those warnings from other people right? Did I misunderstand God’s direction? Did the enemy thwart a divine purpose, and if so, why was he allowed to do that? I had no explanation for what had happened. I went to my hotel room very discouraged, and the environment didn’t make me feel any better. The room felt like a dungeon—damp, dark, and cold. I was tired and sick. There was so much warfare in these circumstances, much of it swirling around in my mind, that I thought I might die alone in the middle of an unreached area.  

I had seen a mosque next to the hotel when I checked in, and as I lay in my room that night, I thought I saw an imam appear and then disappear. Was it a vision, or was my room being invaded? I thought I was losing my mind. But at some point I remembered the Lamb, and He filled that room with His presence. He reminded me of the time He entered a closed room and imparted peace to His disciples (John 20:19-23). He reassured them by demonstrating His presence, declaring peace, pointing out His provision through the wounds in His hands and side, presenting evidence that He was everything they would ever need, and giving them a purpose: to go out as the Father had sent Him. In other words, to go into the world as lambs among wolves. He promised His presence and power to help them, which filled them with renewed passion.

Presence, peace, provision, proof, power, purpose, and passion.

My encounter with the Lamb did not change the circumstances right away—I still felt tired and sick in a cold, damp room. That cricket stadium with 60,000 seats was still flooded, and my vision for that region seemed dead. But my perspective changed. I heard the Lamb saying, “Whatever you need, Leif, I am.” And I felt His peace. The next day I was invited to a wedding between two people prominent in Pakistan society. I had come out of a spiritual storm and was seeing with new eyes, so I was looking forward to the event. But the physical storm still followed us, and it threatened to blow the huge wedding tent down and ruin the day for this important family. As we arrived at the wedding site, our vehicle was surrounded by people saying “Allahu akbar” (God is great). “The ambassador of love has come, and the rain has stopped!”  

The ambassador of love has come? That was their nickname for me. I have a reputation in that country for being an ambassador of love. And apparently, the rain had stopped just as I arrived. The people were amazed at what had happened. They could still see the storm clouds surrounding the wedding site, but the clouds would not come closer. I knew I could not take credit for that; it was something only God could accomplish. But I realized that by having His peace in the midst of the storm, His presence in me had authority over the storm itself. That miraculous event gave me great favor among the people. When I was asked in an interview how I had even gotten into the country and why I had come, I told them that I had come because I love Pakistan. “If you are getting attacked,” I said with tears in my eyes, “then I need to be attacked too, because we are family.” 

Those words spread very quickly. I met with a governor of Punjab, which led to a meeting with the president. I was invited to speak at a mosque, where I met generals, imams, and other Muslim leaders and talked about love. That meeting was on the news, and about forty to fifty million people saw it. It opened up even greater favor for me in that country. I had been devastated over losing the event that we had spent months planning for, but instead I received a national platform. That crisis turned into an opportunity. My loss of an audience of sixty thousand gave me an audience of fifty million. My peace in the storm became authority over the storm. My brokenness became a breakthrough in the hands of the Lamb.

This blog is an excerpt from The Heart of Roaring Lambs book. Learn more about the book HERE. 

A Kingdom Family Talks Conversation with Leif Hetland and Paul Yadao.

We live in a world that moves at lightning speed. From the moment we wake, our minds are pulled into emails, texts, deadlines, and the relentless hum of productivity. But what if, in our rush to accomplish more, we’re actually falling behind? Not in our work, but in our walk with God?

In my latest podcast episode, I sit down with Pastor Paul Yadao to unpack a profound truth: sometimes, the only way to catch up with God is to slow down.

“Hurry is not just a schedule problem; it’s a spiritual problem.” — Paul Yadao

Hurry doesn’t just steal our peace; it quietly robs us of intimacy with the Father. When we live in a constant state of motion, we stop listening deeply. We react instead of discerning. We drift from the gentle rhythm of grace and start moving at a pace God never asked us to maintain.

“There’s a difference between doing things for God and doing things with God. If I lose the ‘with,’ I’ve lost the heart of it all.” — Leif Hetland

Slowing down isn’t laziness. It’s intentionality. It’s creating margin for what matters most. Paul describes it as making space for God to speak, lead, and restore.

Two spiritual practices stand out:

1. Silence: Stillness helps us quiet external and internal noise, opening our hearts to God’s presence.

2. Sabbath:  More than a day off, Sabbath is a rhythm of life that realigns us with God and refreshes our souls.

“The Sabbath is not a rule to follow—it’s an invitation to be fully present with God and fully alive in your own soul.” — Paul Yadao

Slowing down is about alignment. Just like a musician must pause to tune their instrument, we must regularly stop to let God tune our hearts. Over the years, I’ve learned to view rest as a strategic move in the Kingdom. Not as lost time, but as invested time.

This conversation isn’t a guilt trip for the overworked. It’s a lifeline for the soul. Whether you’re a ministry leader, business owner, parent, or student, the message is clear: God moves at the pace of relationship, not production.

So take a breath. Schedule that Sabbath. Take a break from the noise for a while. Let your heart beat in rhythm with His again.

🎧 Listen Now: Slow Down to Catch Up – Kingdom Family Talks Ep. 185

For God so loved the world that He gave his only begotten son that whosoever believes in Him should not perish, but have everlasting life. For God did not send His son into the world to condemn the world, but that the world through Him might be saved.”– John 3:16-17

In December of 1999, my life was forever changed when I had a profound encounter with the Father, an experience I call a baptism of love. I went from living as an orphan striving for love to living as a beloved son, secure in love.

I remember being deeply impacted by Jonathan Edwards’ famous sermon, Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God. But after my encounter with love, I began to see things differently. It’s not just sinners in the hands of an angry God, but it’s sinners in the hands of a loving Father, perfectly revealed through Jesus Christ.

At the Cross, we discover something powerful: the God revealed in Jesus would rather die in the name of love than kill in the name of freedom. We humans may kill for freedom, but in the name of love, we suffer and we forgive. God’s answer to the brokenness of the world is self-giving, sacrificial love. God saves the world through His self-sacrificing love.

Some may ask, “But what about God’s wrath? What about His rage?” The wrath that burned in the heart of the Father was not directed at His Son, rather, it was aimed at sin itself. My encounter with Papa God’s love and the Spirit of Adoption transformed my theology of the Cross.

There are many metaphors used to understand the mystery of the atonement, or the “at-one-ment” between God and humanity. Here are a few:

1. Sacrificial: Rooted in the Jewish temple system, where Jesus becomes the Lamb sacrificed for our sins. Because of His sacrifice at Calvary, we receive forgiveness, mercy, and oneness with the Father.

2. Commercial: Drawn from the first-century slave market, where Jesus becomes the ransom for many. He buys us out of slavery to sin and into the glorious freedom of being God’s children.

3. Military: In this picture of the battlefield, Christ becomes our victor. Through His righteous life and death, He defeats the enemy and breaks the power of accusation forever.

4. Legal: Based in the courtroom. Christ takes our guilty verdict upon Himself so we can be declared “not guilty.” We receive and enjoy unmerited pardon by grace through faith.

5. Political: The Cross reconciles not only us to God, but us to one another. Through His blood, Jesus tears down every dividing wall. Between Jew and Gentile, between nations and peoples.

6. Adoption: This view changed my life. The Cross is a beautiful picture of adoptive love, intimate and relational. We are welcomed into the family of the Trinity as sons and daughters. (I want to thank Dr. Mark Stibbe for giving me language to express this revelation.)

The Cross reveals a Christ-like God, a loving Father who wants His family back. It is the perfection of consent: Christ rules by love, not coercion. He only said what the Father told Him to say, and only did what He saw the Father doing.

As Jesus said, “Very truly I tell you, the Son can do nothing by Himself; He can do only what He sees His Father doing, because whatever the Father does, the Son also does. For the Father loves the Son and shows Him all He does” (John 5:19-20).

There is complete agreement and mutual love between the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Jesus also said, “Moreover, the Father judges no one, but has entrusted all judgment to the Son, that all may honor the Son just as they honor the Father who sent Him” (John 5:22-23). And the Holy Spirit? “When He, the Spirit of truth, comes, He will guide you into all truth. He will not speak on His own; He will speak only what He hears” (John 16:13).

In six hours, one Friday, you will find a truth greater than all your pain, all your loss, and all your sorrow. The Cross reveals that the reign of God is not through domination, but through kenotic (self-emptying) love.

Christ rules over sin, sickness, addiction, depression, fear, anxiety, and shame, not with a sword, but with the cruciform power of love. Jesus came to seek and save that which was lost (Luke 19:10).

So come to the Cross. Receive everything Jesus paid for.

Blessed Easter,
Dr. Leif Hetland

What is the most breathtaking sight you’ve ever seen? Maybe you love the mountains—how they reach into the clouds and tower over beautiful river valleys below. Maybe you’re a beach person—you can’t resist a colorful sunset over a peaceful sea. Perhaps you’re captivated by the mystery of life—seeing a newborn baby gaze into its mother’s and father’s eyes.

Whatever that picture is for you, there is love behind it. Creation is a reflection of God’s glory and an expression of His love. The beautiful sights, the captivating sounds, the sweet tastes and smells, the tender touches—all of these wonderful things come from the heart of the Father as gifts to His beloved sons and daughters, made in His image.

But God did more than paint beautiful scenes. He created a setting for something deeper. He created human beings to look like Him, to live like Him, and to love like Him. He blessed them and told them to be fruitful, multiply, fill the earth, and take dominion over it. (See Genesis 1:26–28.) In this landscape of love, the relationships of the first family were meant to reflect divine values. Their hearts were meant to align with each other’s hearts. There would be no insecurity, animosity, competition, or emotional wounds.

We know this is not how it turned out, of course. But for a moment, just imagine if it had. What if our world truly reflected the love and glory of God? What if everyone loved one another as perfectly as Jesus has loved us? If there was no jealousy, no rivalry—only support, selflessness, and the pursuit of God’s purposes? But we mistrusted His love. We have all opted for self over selflessness. We have eaten from the wrong trees. And now, we live in a world where pain, division, and brokenness are everyday realities.

Yet Jesus came to show us a different way. He lived the life we were meant to live—one of perfect love, perfect obedience, perfect trust in the Father. He walked among the broken and brought healing. He saw the outcast and called them family. He did not seek His own glory, but humbled Himself to serve.

Living like Jesus means returning to the love we were created for. It means choosing selflessness over self-promotion, trust over fear, and grace over judgment. It means seeing the world through the eyes of the Father, loving as He loves, and giving as He gives. To live like Jesus, we must see ourselves through the Father’s eyes. This requires revelation. The world has told us who we are, our mistakes have defined us, and our failures have weighed us down. But God’s thoughts of us existed long before any of those things. He saw us before time began and called us good. Even with His full knowledge of every regret, mistake, and flaw, He still saw a true you, a perfect design, a redeemed purpose. Your journey did not begin when you were born or even when you were conceived. Your story started in the heart of the Father before time itself. Yes, sin and brokenness have taken our journeys in painful directions, but they do not define us. They are intrusions, not identity. If we truly want to know who we are, we must look back at the love before time.

Go back for a minute to those breathtaking scenes—the mountains, the sea, the beauty of creation. All of that love and divine creativity is also reflected in you. When God spoke over creation and said it was “very good” (Genesis 1:31), He was thinking of you. You were designed to fit into the glory of the garden, to live in communion with Him. Sin distorted this, but it did not erase God’s original intent.

This is why we need restoration. The Gospel is not only about the forgiveness of sins; it is about being restored to the image of God. It is about returning to who we were always meant to be. The love that formed us before time is also the love that will hold us to the end. From start to finish, God’s love is calling us back into our true selves—His beloved sons and daughters.
When the first human beings opted out of love—just as the deceiver had done before them—God did not stop loving them. He removed them from the garden, not out of anger, but out of love. If they had eaten from the tree of life while still under sin’s curse, they would have been trapped in an eternal state of brokenness. Instead, God set in motion a greater plan: a new tree of life.

That tree was the cross.

Jesus, in His perfect love, became the way back to the Father. He took on our rebellion, our wounds, and our sorrows. He showed us what it means to truly live—not for ourselves, but for others, for the Kingdom, for the glory of God.
Living like Jesus means embracing this reality. It means surrendering our need for control and allowing God’s love to transform us. It means trusting that we were created for something greater than selfish ambition, insecurity, or fear. We were made to reflect the heart of God. So who are you? Who were you before the weight of the world told you otherwise?
The answer is found in Jesus. To live like Him is to live as you were always meant to. In love. In truth. In the fullness of the Father’s heart.

This blog is an excerpt from Leif Hetland’s latest book, The Love Awakening. Grab your copy today!