I spent years in Chair 2 (rooted in fear) before I experienced a baptism of the Father’s love that changed my life. His love went to the deepest roots of fear in my life that caused me to live with an orphan heart. His perfect love cast out fear and made me feel His pleasure, not pressure. I felt His liquid love pouring over me and driving out the deepest root of fear in my life. As His perfect love went in, I was delivered and cleansed. 

I heard an audible voice that said, “Leif, you are Mine. You are my beloved. I love you. I like you. I delight in you. You don’t have to do anything. We will do much together, but I don’t value you for what you do. I just want you for you. Come home.” 

When I came out of the encounter, I wept for several hours and expressed myself in ways Norwegians normally don’t do! I had been stoic before; now, I was a son. My Father loves me! He likes me! Something shifted. Many doors of opportunity opened before me that had never opened before. When I was in Chair 2, I needed opportunity in order to feel valuable and significant to get my needs met. But once I knew I was a son, I didn’t need anything! The whole world began to open up.

In simple theology, Jesus took my F and gave me an A+. He took my report card and gave me His. What is true of Him is now true of me. When I woke up to that grace, it was overwhelming. He did not treat me according to my mess and give me what I deserved. He treated me as a son in whom He was well pleased. Then He said, “This is the way I want you to treat the world. I have forgiven you; forgive them. As I’ve loved you, go and love them.” He sent me out to change the environment in the same way the environment inside me had been changed. 

When I am in Chair 1 (sonship), I am focused on the Father. I am overwhelmed with His goodness and kindness. I can see His face, hear His voice, and sense His love. It is a place of rest. I am energized and empowered by the Dove (Holy Spirit). 

When I am squeezed, love comes out. My desire is to bring heaven to Earth and see the Father’s kingdom come where I am. 

When I am in Chair 2 (orphan heart), I experience restlessness. I don’t see His face or hear His voice very well. I may know about His love, but I don’t really feel it. I am trying to live off of my own energy and power and end up drained and fatigued. Instead of the Dove, I have pigeon religion! When I get squeezed, something other than love comes out—anger, frustration, bitterness, or something else that doesn’t feel very good. Rather than bringing heaven to Earth, my focus is only on getting myself and others to heaven, without any confidence that He is doing something amazing in the here and now. 

If you find yourself in unrest, unable to be at peace, and constantly striving toward who you think God wants you to be, then you are in Chair 2, and that’s where the enemy wants to keep you. He would have preferred to keep you in darkness in Chair 3, but having lost that battle, his next best strategy is to keep you in Chair 2, where you can know about your Father but not really know the depths of His love. In that place, you will continue to be restless, striving to perform and become, but wearing yourself out.

God has a baptism of love for you—a place close to His heart. From this intimate place, you will be able to see the world as God sees it, feel what His heart feels, and operate from the depths of His love in the midst of every challenging circumstance. The closer you draw to the Father’s burning heart of love, the more it will change your inner environment, equipping you to change the environment around you. Instead of constantly being impacted by the world, you will be the one doing the impacting. 

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We are living in a season when the gospel, the good news of the kingdom, will be preached as a witness and testimony to all nations. The knowledge of the glory of God is going to cover the earth as the water covers the sea (Habakkuk 2:14). The kingdoms of this world are going to become the kingdom of the Lord—through those who know who they are, whose they are, and what they have in Him. Everything God has is made available to you in order for you to fulfill your destiny. 

I know many believers who are running after their inheritance and destiny before entering into the rest of their identity and intimacy with God. They are striving to achieve rather than realizing what they have received. Most of the world believes they have to do something in order to have something so they can be something. That is not how we were originally designed.

In God’s design, we are something, so we have everything, and then can do anything. To be specific, we are in a covenant relationship with the Father because we are sons and daughters, and with that inheritance, we fulfill our assignment, our destiny. Being, then having, then doing. You will find that your natural tendency as a result of the fall is to do in order to have, and to have in order to be. That is why most people in the world are trying to find their identity in what they do and what they have and are always falling short. They never get to the place of true identity. They don’t know how to be sons and daughters of the Father. They invert the order by doing, then having, then being. 

It all begins with identity—seeing ourselves as God sees us, thinking and feeling about ourselves as He does, and loving ourselves as He does because we can never love Him or others until we’ve experienced His love ourselves. Then we grow in intimacy with Him. We become what we behold, and whatever we become we are then able to release. The world’s system of doing something in order to become something doesn’t work. Our minds have a hard time grasping the truth—that we are and then we do. That’s one of the primary reasons we have to step out of conformity with this world and let our minds be renewed (Romans 12:1-2). It’s the only way to recognize who we are and whose we are. 

I know I am a beloved son. My Papa loves me, adores me, and delights in me. I’m His happy thought. He is for me and not against me. This is the starting point, the beginning. Knowing this enables me to experience the presence of Father in His home and live in a place of peace—shalom. We have communion there. We are together, united in a covenant of love and intimacy. I gaze at His face, and then when I look in the mirror I see myself totally differently. I hear His voice from a place of love. In the resting place, as I commune with a God who loves the world, I begin to love the way He loves, and then I can reign with Him as He reigns. Fear is gone because perfect love casts out fear (1 John 4:18). Love begins to motivate me to do what I see the Father doing. Only from identity and intimacy do I begin to realize the inheritance I have. 

There is abundance in the Father’s house, more than enough in the family account to have everything I need to do what I have been called to do. Jesus paid for everything on the cross. He inherits everything, and I am a co-heir with Him. His inheritance is my inheritance. With this knowledge, I can begin to grasp my destiny. Yes, the world is dark, but in the middle of the darkness I am going to rise and shine with the glory that is rising upon me, just as Isaiah 60 says, God is raising up culture changers in this generation who will tip the balance in the current war on worldview. Light is penetrating darkness because we are getting new glasses that change the way we think. Our minds are being renewed. From the resting place—knowing our identity, intimacy, inheritance, and destiny—we reign with Him and begin to change the world.

On the way to your destiny you will acquire Kingdom skills that will change you and in turn change the world around you. You will learn what it means to enter the hard work of rest, to see the way God sees, to hear His voice, love the way He loves. With a renewed mind, in this place of intimacy, love replaces fear and problems become promises as you reign with Him as He reigns. Want to read more about this topic? Purchase Called To Reign by clicking here.

The power of the truth of God is unmatched. Take that truth and put it into song form and before you know it, you’ve been hijacked by the love of God. Isn’t He wonderful?

I was sitting in the office one day when the song “No Longer Slaves” started to play and the Holy Spirit stopped me to call truth into remembrance. This song so beautifully depicts this reality: “For you have not received a spirit of slavery leading to fear again, but you have received a spirit of adoption as sons and daughters by which we cry out, “Abba! Father!” (Romans 8:15)

Because of what Jesus accomplished on the Cross, we do not have to ever be unsure of our status with God! Our confidence is established through faith in Jesus. We do not have to fear judgment. We are free to live in the freedom that was purchased. 

According to scripture, we are children of God, born not of the will of man, nor the desire of the flesh, but of God; of HIS desire. (John 1:12,13)  We are born again into the family of love. Into a new covenant.

This is good news! This will make you want to dance. We are not subject to sin. We are not fatherless and left on our own through this journey of life. We have no fear in the commitment of this relationship because we didn’t keep up our end of the bargain, but Jesus Himself has fulfilled the righteous requirement of the law. 

Not only this, we are not strangers to God! We have the intimacy of family; Sonship through adoption, not slaves to the fear of separation of God. We are joined with the one who loves us now and always.

Beloved, if you have any fear in your life, any lack, look to Jesus. Remember that you are in Him. You are a son. You are a daughter. Say it outloud and remind your soul. We cannot afford to forget this in these times. The truth of who and whose we are must remain at the forefront of our minds.

 It’s His truth that reminds us that we have nothing and no one to fear. 

We belong to Jesus and we shall not lack any good thing.

The first reformation restored grace, and the second power. This new reformation will restore love. 

A new reformation is coming. The church is in a time of transition. We are no longer who we used to be, but we have not yet become who we are supposed to become. That is true for us as a body and as individuals, and many are feeling the tension. No one is surprised that Chair 3 is being shaked, but Chair 2 is being shaken also. The kingdom in Chair 1 is unshakeable, however, and Jesus is unchanging. Our mission is like playing a game where we already know the final score. We can be perfectly content because we see the end. I can go into the darkest places of the world and be at peace because I know what is happening. It’s like inside trading, but in the kingdom, it’s legal. We have a new way of fishing—not making an intellectual argument but helping people have an encounter with Jesus and experience His love. That’s the focus of our worldwide mission in the third reformation. 

The core value in this next reformation is not the gifts of the individual. In the previous reformation, people came to the family table to eat whatever the anointed ones brought to it. Those with the strongest gifts were the focus. Now leaders are adding value to others by investing in their gifts.  They are realizing that anyone can do these things. They are creating a ceiling for others to use as their floor. The generations will unite just as the Lord said they would. The Old Testament ends with a promise of the spirit of Elijah, which will restore the hearts of fathers toward their children and children toward their fathers.

Restored love will stop the curse in the land. Love will take ‘self’ out of the worldwide orphanage and put family in its place.  Jesus prayed that the perfect love the Father has for the Son would be in each one of us (John 17:26). Then we will love ourselves the way He loves us, which will enable us to love our neighbors as we love ourselves. When that is coupled with the power of the second reformation, we will see a love that changes everything. That has been the missing piece. 

Bringing the best of each reformation into your assignment and adding the love of the Father to the power and the Word are what it takes to be a culture changer. 

Most Christians throughout history have understood that love is a vital part of the Gospel. This is very plain in Scripture. But I cannot think of any generation of Christians for the last two thousand years that has lived out this message of love the way God has intended. Rarely have believers made it their priority to bring the love of Heaven down to earth so people can experience the environment of the perfect family from before time. We have not made our world feel like the Father’s living room. Now is the time. In fact, I believe this is one reason that we are seeing so much hatred and polarization in our world right now.  The enemy is sowing opposite seeds in the world, like he has done even from the beginning. He senses that this message is about to be revealed. He wants to divide because love will bring unity. The tsunami waves of love are coming soon! 

We are seeing signs of this love reformation in many places around the world, even if they are not very visible to many people yet. Papa God is inviting His people to encounter His love, live from a whole heart, and walk in the power that supernatural love brings. 

This will mean pursuing His love, asking for and preparing for encounters, and stewarding the seeds of love faithfully. But when Papa God’s children are immersed in His love and allow it to touch and heal the deepest areas of their lives, the seeds of reformation have been planted. I could tell you many examples of this. Agape love has always worked powerfully in the world.

“Cease striving and know that I am God; I will be exalted among the nations, I will be exalted in the earth.” Psalm 46:10 

The world we live in is full of noise and distraction. I feel it is urgent that we learn how to “Be still and know…” I long for each of us to know how to be still before the Lord and soak up His presence. I am convinced that it is the most important thing, the most beneficial. The earth is groaning for the revealing of the sons and daughters. We need sons and daughters who are fully alive and immersed in God’s love, which means we need to learn to live in His presence! 

Soaking prayer is being still in the Presence of God. Although the body is at rest, the heart longs and yearns for the Lord. Soaking prayer is far from being passive. It is a dynamic thing to wait on Him with great expectation within. We may be sitting comfortably or lying down, but our heart is wide open, sensitive to the leading of the Spirit, ready to receive from the Father. 

The heart is a container before God. The deeper we long for Him, the more we receive of Him. Let yours be an empty vessel ready to be filled with His fullness. 

How do we soak?

There are practical steps that we can follow when soaking. Whether alone or with a group, the following steps are valuable:

1. Create a peaceful place.

Finding a place that is set up to be conducive and offers some kind of privacy and silence is the first practical starting point. It could be a particular area in your house, office, or living room, free from distractions. You can have soft music playing in the background. This could help get you into the flow and focus on Him. However, there are some people who would prefer complete silence. Choose what works best for you.

2. Quiet Down – Psalm 62:5 says, “My soul waits in silence for God only, for my hope is from Him.”

Quiet down your heart and mind. This is not emptying your mind but filling it with longing and desires for God. The best way for me to focus and quiet down is to express my need and longing for Him. Sometimes I whisper a prayer, “Oh Father, I miss You, I thirst for You..” As I go deeper in my longings, I sense the Spirit of God taking over my thoughts and guiding me deeper into His Presence. 

Quieting our hearts may not come automatically. But much like the way we develop our physical muscles, our spiritual muscles need constant exercise. Doing this again and again makes it easier.

3. Focus – Psalm 27:4 says, “One thing I have asked from the Lord, that I shall seek: that I may dwell in the house of the Lord all the days of my life, to behold the beauty of the Lord and to meditate in his temple.”

Beauty in this verse means God’s delightfulness–His goodness. By the Holy Spirit, we gaze at the beauty (delightfulness) of the Father. This is an important point; setting our eyes on an angry face is hard. 

Let me say that again–It is hard to set our eyes on an angry face. 

Whenever we come to Him, we see His face shining with joy and love toward us. To gaze is to look intently and steadily. Remembering His loving kindness helps us to focus on His nearness. We become aware of His desire to be with us, His children. 

Let your heart understand that HE delights in you, and He is filled with joy and anticipation to be with you! As you look intently upon one facet of His character, for example, goodness, He comes and saturates your whole being with a clear sense and awareness that He indeed is good. 

Then you come to a state where you could really say you have tasted and seen His immeasurable goodness to you! Goodness will become alive inside of you! This experience is far deeper than any sermon or study of the Bible. This is what revelation is all about. 

What you focus on will be magnified within you.

Like David seeing the universe, the stars, and the moon, in one of his meditations (Psalm 8), he came to realize the greatness of God, His glory, and His majesty. At that very moment, he came to a clear understanding of man’s value before the eyes of God. 

The Almighty God has crowned him with glory and majesty and made him the ruler of His creation. David did not receive this revelation through mere study or scientific observation of God’s universe but through an experience of God’s presence and character displayed in His works and he was amazed!

Focusing on the Lord also means having an expectant heart for Him to come, much like a watchman waiting for the breaking of dawn. We focus our whole being with a deep sense of anticipation and excitement. We pay close attention in our spirit for whatever God has for us. The moment God shows up, we are ready to plunge into His presence and not let go of Him. 

To focus on Him is to be sensitive to the leading of the Holy Spirit. There will be times you will sense that your emotions, desires, joy and peace are being awakened as you allow Him to guide you deeper into the Presence of God. All these are the inner workings of the Holy Spirit. His Word becomes a living experience to us. 

4. Longing and Seeking – Psalm 84:1-2 says, “How lovely are Your dwelling places, O Lord of hosts! My soul longed and even yearned for the courts of the Lord! My heart and my flesh sing for joy to the living God.” 

Deep calls unto deep, the psalmist wrote. Our hearts have the capacity to go deeper in desiring His Presence. David likened his yearning for God to a desert longing for water; let our hearts also desire God. The deeper we go in our desires and longings, the more depth He creates inside of us. The Spirit of God is our Teacher. He is the ‘paraclete,’ the one Who walks alongside us. He will lead us deeper into the realms of the Father’s Presence as we allow our hearts to be passionate in pursuing Him.

5. Respond to God – Psalm 34:8 says, “O taste and see that the Lord is good; how blessed is the man who takes refuge in Him!”

God’s presence comes in waves. Be sensitive to the flow of the Holy Spirit within you. Watch out for impressions rising within your heart as the Spirit of God leads you deeper. What I like about soaking is this: it is never boring!

It is unpredictable yet exciting, to say the least, it is a journey!  As our hearts and thoughts focus on Him, our whole being responds to Him–our emotions, desires, creativity, passion, faith, and dreams are awakened. Joy, peace, and love also fill our hearts. 

As you go deeper into His Presence, the Lord also reveals His heart to you. The Lord comes to us in different measures, tones and modes. He may come in a quiet whisper. Or He will paint a picture in your mind that would startle you or trigger thoughts and emotions that would release joy unspeakable. At other times you will see His face, or the heavenly realms, or angels. Sometimes He overwhelms you with His love, flowing like a liquid fire into your being, consuming fears, doubts, limitations, rejections, and shame, and making you free. Praise God!

There will be times you will feel deep peace, or His glory will come like a weighty substance that covers your entire body. Your senses become so sensitive in His Presence. 

It is true; you are more alive in His Presence. 

Selah!

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What started as a chapel service on a seemingly typical Sunday at Asbury University has taken a turn as what appears to be a sovereign move of God. Thousands of people are traveling from near and far to experience the tangible presence of God and witness an outpouring of love on Gen Z. Some characteristics reported of what’s happening is mass repentance and a manifest presence of God. The gatherings are multigenerational in nature and people are being refreshed. The gatherings have been going on for days now and there seems to be no end in sight. 

For years believers everywhere have prayed and prophesied that another Jesus Movement is coming and that there will be a billion soul harvest as the coming of Jesus draws near. Could this move of God be what we have been waiting and praying for? Reports are being shared from all over the world. It is very evident that God is present in a very special way. The Spirit of God is showing up in unusual ways in churches and college campuses. Hunger is growing as revival fire is spreading.

This week in our masterclass, a student asked a very important question. We give the students an opportunity to submit questions beforehand while my spiritual son Paul Yadao and I answer. 

The student asked, “Can you please talk about the Asbury Revival and how we can support or bring it to where we are?”

Paul shared about his own revival experience in the Philippines when he was a young adult in college. He recalls that the movement started similarly to what’s currently taking place in Asbury. They were a bunch of unassuming college students on a campus who were rebellious in nature. They began crying out for revival and reading books on revival until God broke through and transformed the hearts of the students. They were no longer radical, rebellious, or anti-government. The students became tender and God-fearing. They would have passionate prayer meetings daily from 5:30 AM until 7 AM.  It lasted for 7 years. When the Father sovereignly steps in like this “…God is preparing the Bride,” exhorted Paul. “A dying church cannot win a dying world. Revival must happen to the church first as God is giving us right alignment and shifting our priorities.”

What’s happening in Asbury is connected with what’s happening in the lives of youth and young adults all around the world. We see a generation that is creative yet distracted, anxious and fearful of their futures. 

In moves like this when the Spirit of God is poured out, God will usually bring a culture that is contrary to societal norms. Intensity will replace apathy and where there’s a lack of hunger, God will pour out His Spirit on youth.

If you have a chance to be exposed to this type of environment, please go. To steward and engage with what the Lord is doing requires humility and sacrifice. You can honor what God is doing and ask Him at the same time to come and be very present where you are. The Father longs to pour out His Spirit upon all flesh. Gather with people and pray. I want to urge you to honor the fire. In the Kingdom, we receive freely from what we honor.

We are continuing to pray for the tsunami wave of God’s love to wash over all nations and people groups. Let us receive His love, become love and release love until everyone hears the beautiful name of Jesus. He will have a radiant and spotless bride that has been ravished by His love. The love awakening is upon us! 

My book “The Love Awakening” will equip you to release the supernatural love of Papa God and walk in the baptism of love!

“And I will put enmity between you and the woman and between your seed and her seed; he shall bruise you on the head, and you shall bruise him on the heel.” Genesis 3:15 NASB

The Father promised us that love would win. What a sobering thought.

His method was offspring. A seed. A seed? Yes. A seed because from a seed comes a family. This is so significant. From the beginning of time, the center of the Kingdom has been family (the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit). 

Perhaps, with all that is going on in the world and our individual lives, we lose sight of the significance of what Jesus accomplished on the Cross and what He wants to continue through us. Follow me for a moment. 

A seed has within it the ability to reproduce after its kind. Jesus came to the Earth, lived a holy, joy-filled life in communion with the Father, and died a criminal’s death. He was resurrected from the dead and seated at the right hand of the Father. Before Jesus left the earth, he made a promise to us. We were to receive “another” who was better. The question is not what is this “other” but WHO? The other that came was not only the Comforter but the very Spirit of Christ.

Jesus was planted as a seed from the perfect family of love into the Earth and one of the reasons was so that we could be born again in His likeness. This is formed within us through the precious Holy Spirit, which Jesus said could not come if He didn’t leave. (John 16:7) Jesus’ expression as the seed of love gave us the opportunity to die and to be raised to new life so that we could experience unbroken communion with the holy Trinity. Not only that, Jesus’ blood cleanses our conscience from the guilt of the law and establishes us as righteous in God’s eyes. This is what the SEED, the Lamb of God, has done. 

Now, we have been born again as children of light with the seed of love within us. Abba has given us, His beloved, Jesus within us. Forever. He has triumphed over sin, as He said, nothing would ever separate us from His love. (Romans 8:31-39)

What does one become with the seed of love germinating in their hearts? Love.

And love MUST express itself.

Love is alive in you today. He’s expressing Himself as He conforms you into the image of love and this love must flow from within you as you fellowship with Jesus.

Who has Love opened your eyes to? Where is He wanting to express Himself through you? Love has already won and everyday He wins in you and through you.You can read more about the “Seeds of Love” and other transforming stories in my book, “The Love Awakening.” The Father has prepared a tsunami of love that will overcome the earth and all the nations will experience Him. He loves this world and we will see a mass repentance take place. His love must be expressed; we will see a love awakening. 

“Before I formed you in the womb I knew you, before you were born I set you apart; I appointed you as a prophet to the nations.” Jeremiah 1: 4-5

Who are you? 

It can be the most daunting question.

You start to answer with an explanation about your job. “Okay that’s what you do but who are you?”  Your stomach drops and you begin to describe your relationships—a mother, a father, a sister, a brother, a friend, an athlete, an artist, a singer, a writer, etc.

“But who ARE you?”

With a deep sigh, you confess, “I don’t know who I am.”

Ah, finally we can start. 

It takes humility AND courage to begin this journey. It takes willingness, persistence, and resilience to dig deeper and deeper in order to capture the very clarity of who you are.

This is so that you can see yourself the way that Papa God sees you and discover what you were born for. You will find your place at the Father’s table among the 7.8 billion people in this world. 

The world has been labeling you your whole life, trying to fit you into a box and even labeling you by your sin.  But faith has given you a new name!

One of my favorite authors, John Eldredge, said, “I dare say we have heard a bit about original sin, but not nearly enough about original glory, which comes before sin and is deeper to our nature. We were crowned with glory and honor.” What he’s describing here is what if your starting place was glory and not sin? 

Imagine yourself living your life, knowing the uniqueness and the rarity of you, living a lifestyle of glory in everything that you do and everything that you say and people seeing who God is because you reflect His image.

When you realize how valuable you are, you add value to everybody else everywhere you go! You are an amazing miracle that the world around you is waiting to see revealed. How does it feel to imagine walking into a room full of confidence, head held high, because you know your value?

But beloved, many voices will try to tell who you are. And your circumstances will try to inform you of who God is. 

It is crucial that you carve out time to attune your ears to your Father. In order to know your value, you need to spend time asking the Father how he sees you and listen. 

Listen to your Father sing over you. Listen to the conversation the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit are having about you, about how much they love you, what they adore about you, and what they like about you. They are a healthy family. Listening in on their conversations about you is not scary because they are not speaking ill of you, betraying you, or cutting you down behind your back. 

When we are talking about God, the word “God” is the word “Elohim”. It’s a plural word. So Genesis 1 says “In the beginning, God…” In the beginning, there was a Father, there was a Son and there was a Holy Spirit. In the beginning, there was a family and they had this brilliant idea to make man in their image. 

God is love and his love is the very super glue that you find in the beginning. You see the way that the Father loves the Son, the Son loves the Spirit, the Spirit loves the Son and the Son loves the Father. They are totally one. 

You will find from the division that you feel, perhaps in your mind or in your heart, it is going to be changed when you realize that at the family table, in the beginning, you were there.

When you are entering into this beautiful dance of love; when you love you the way that Papa God loves you, just as He did in the beginning, you’ll see that honor is what love looks like. The way the Father honors the Son and the Son honors the Spirit; the Spirit honors the Son, and the Son honors the Father. That’s how the Father also honors you. It’s actually what you are in glory.

Before sin came in, before there was any shame, before there was any guilt, before there was anything, there was this perfect love. You were formed in that perfect love and part of the journey to identity is for you to gain clarity about the original intention of what Papa God has for you.

Who are you?