Our Father: The Watch Letter

When I was lost in the world as a graduating college student, battling in my mind, heart, and body, my brother-in-law introduced me to his Father, who is a great man of God and pastor. He knew I needed prayer and counseling and a life change. Although I had a biological father, he knew I needed a father who was in tune with God to help me where I was struggling. So, I was adopted and engrafted into the family from the day Apostle Red introduced me to his Father, our Pastor Chief Apostle Gunn.

And then I met Apostle Red's sisters Apostle Angel and Apostle Terah. Although they didn't know me well, when we first met, they began to draw close to me, as they do with so many, and told me about their loving life with their Father. The way he treated his biological children let me know that God had sent me to the Father that was right for me and the Father I needed to help me become who I was made to be. He was a father that could raise me up in the Lord.

Don't get me wrong; I am grateful for the things my biological Father (and mother) could provide for me as a child. And for them teaching me and leading me to so many of the skills I have today as an adult in the professional world. But, what I needed most as I was leaving college was someone to teach me how to surrender to God because being saved is my true profession. (Yes, God can give us two sets of parents, siblings, aunties, uncles, etc., to ensure all the bases are covered.)

As a father and Godly leader, Chief Apostle Gunn has never failed to care for me or treat me as his daughter. He has driven hundreds of miles in the natural to reach me and fasted and prayed for thousands of hours to help and advise me.

He also adopted my biological sisters and took great care of them, and helped us all in ways we could never count, including my biological parents. From needing a place to stay, a shoulder to cry on, guidance on career and marital decisions, to teaching us how to love God 24/7 (because we had been shown only to praise him at church over the years, and he requires more than that). Chief Apostle Gunn has made a true difference in our lives.

Not only did God give me a family on earth that I needed, but he also placed me in his family - the family of God. I am now called by God's name, and that's the best family name you can have!

So, because Apostles Red, Angel, and Terah shared their Father with me (Thank y'all!), my life and my biological family's life were changed forever. Seventeen years later, I am still in the family and closer than ever to God the Father because my Father, Chief Apostle Gunn, helped me make that connection.

This testimony is an example of what Jesus did for us on the cross. He shared His Father in Heaven with us by His sacrifice and selflessness and tore down the partition of sin, so we could draw close to our Father God and stay connected to Him forever. Jesus desired that none be lost in the world, and the best way for a child not to be lost is to have access to a good father that will watch for them, teach them, guide them, encourage them, correct them, and love them. That is who God is, and that is why my pastor/father can care for me and others the way he does because he is following the fatherly pattern set by God.

My biological sisters and I are not the only ones my pastor (and his wife, Apostle Felicia) adopted; there are many children worldwide. Some may never tell all he has done, but his legacy and the Lord will speak for him, and I am grateful to have him in my life.

I don't know where my life would be without meeting him and therefore meeting the Lord. And that is how salvation works! When we meet Jesus for ourselves, our lives have new meaning and purpose because he shows us that we belong to the family of God.

Being saved or a Christian is not just about worshipping God, following commandments, being religious, or going to church. What makes us saved is that we accepted the grace and adoption of the Father of the whole universe and became his children when we confessed Christ and received what he did on the cross for us.

When we accept salvation and are genuinely converted in our hearts, we become like our big brother Jesus as far as becoming God's begotten (his child, his seed). So, to be saved is to be born again into the family of God; and to be born again means to become a child; and to become a child means to have a Father. Chief Apostle Gunn has taught us that we must maintain a relationship with God as a child to a Father to maintain our salvation. If you do not accept God as your Father, it will be hard to respect his word and his instruction. When we see God as our Father, we won't want to disappoint him or disobey him because it is in our DNA as humans to want to obey and gain the trust of our fathers.

If we do not accept God as our Father, then how can we obey the rules and enjoy the benefits of His house, His kingdom, His Heaven? As I was studying and thinking about what Chief Apostle Gunn has been teaching, I believe God brought to my attention that those who don't accept God as Father are more likely to stray and be undisciplined in their walk as a Christian. Sometimes we just want God to do things for us but not father us and discipline us. Not only does the Bible document this, but scientific research does too. Fatherless children are often found to have more troubled lives.

According to fatherhood.org, and the U.S. Census Bureau, 18.4 million children, 1 in 4, live without a biological, step, or adoptive Father in the home. The website says, consequently, there is a father factor in nearly all the issues facing America today, such as fatherless children being:

• 2X MORE LIKELY TO DROP OUT OF HIGH SCHOOL

• MORE LIKELY TO COMMIT CRIME

• MORE LIKELY TO ABUSE DRUGS AND ALCOHOL

• MORE LIKELY TO GO TO PRISON

• MORE LIKELY TO HAVE BEHAVIORAL PROBLEMS

• MORE LIKELY TO HAVE CHILDREN AS TEENS

Chief Apostle Gunn has taught us that when your Father isn't there, it makes you feel like something is missing, so you go looking for love in all the wrong places. He wisely told us that many programs and systems in this country are designed to encourage women and men not to marry, stay together, and raise children as a united front, and also encourage single-mom households. In fact, more benefits are given to homes without fathers. He also taught us that God revealed that slavery was designed to break up the family pattern and separate men from their families.

So, if this is what is happening in the natural, think about the impact in the spirit -- when we go without living with God as our Father. Also, this speaks to what happens when we are not accepting our spiritual Father that God appointed in our lives.

We are blessed to have a Pastor equipped to be a spiritual father. Because so many of us who were lost before getting saved were raised by fathers who could not teach us how to serve God or who walked away from us because they chose not to serve God.

So, we should embrace the fatherhood God has provided from himself in Heaven and through pastorship because we will have unstable lives without it, as you see above.

2 Corinthians 6 says: 17 Wherefore come out from among them, and be ye separate, saith the Lord, and touch not the unclean thing; and I will receive you. 18 And will be a Father unto you, and ye shall be my sons and daughters, saith the Lord Almighty.

Chief Apostle Gunn said our sustainment as followers of Christ is based on seeing that the Bible is teaching us to see God as Father. Think about it, Jesus kept telling the disciples that he does everything based on what his Father has taught him or told him to do because he leaned on God to supply all of his needs and teach him what is right as his child. A writer, Ashley Evans, wrote this list that documents God is trying throughout the Bible to get us to see him as Father:

1. God provides for us (Philippians 4:19)

2. God protects (Matthew 10:29-31)

3. God encourages us (Psalm: 10:17)

4. God comforts us (2 Corinthians 1:3-4)

5. God disciplines us (Hebrews 12:10)

During recent messages at church and on FORREAL Radio Broadcast, Chief Apostle Gunn has been breaking down to us how Jesus taught us how to pray. When we pray, we should be talking to God as our Father. When a daughter or son gets a chance to sit down with their earthly Father and express themselves, there is confidence, a strengthening, and comfort that comes from that moment, and it works the same way with God. That is why Chief Apostle Gunn said Jesus taught the disciples the Lord's Prayer. It wasn't supposed to just become a traditional recitation in churches or at bedtime; it was supposed to be a pattern for us to learn how to pray and address God and take advantage of our fatherly relationship with God.

Chief Apostle Gunn also taught that just like a good father maps out how he wants his child to grow and prosper in life, God also does the same. He said God has a map for our lives that works better than any GPS. He wants the best for his children, but we have to surrender our way for his way. He has shown us that the path we take in our lives means nothing without God's divine direction.

He also taught how sometimes the problems we face are because we have replaced being fathered by God by being fathered by other people, other agendas, other thoughts, and other things. Because we don't want to be accountable to God as a Father, we will often look to someone OR something else to provide for us instead of God. When we do that, we make them idols in our lives, and we will soon find that our relationship with God begins to diminish because we have made ourselves fatherless.

Often in the natural, a child who has a good Father begins to have a strained relationship with them when they don't want to hear the truth or be corrected by them. As long as they can do and have what they want, they are happy, but the minute the Father puts their foot down, they rebel.

They begin to buck when they want things to go their way, which is what is happening with God and us in the spirit. We are operating in rebellion from our Father because we don't want the truth. The truth that comes from God is the only way to be free, and without it and him as our Father to come and rescue us, we will stay in bondage and live our lives as orphans. That is not what God want's for our lives. So, today let's choose to come home to Our Father.

Please take time to listen to today's FORREAL radio broadcast from Chief Apostle Gunn, titled, "Father!" here: https://www.thebodyofchristinc.com/listen-in?wix-music-track-id=8897451579248923&wix-music-comp-id=comp-kjfzbgmx.

The man of God has brought forth a powerful message that will change us forever if we let it. Thank you, Chief Apostle Gunn, for your labor as a Pastor and as a Father to keep the family of God intact. You have taught us that it is never too late for us to come back home.

Luke 15 displays the true love of a Father: "And when he came to himself, he said, How many hired servants of my Father's have bread enough and to spare, and I perish with hunger! I will arise and go to my Father, and will say unto him, Father, I have sinned against Heaven, and before thee, and am no more worthy to be called thy son: make me as one of thy hired servants. And he arose, and came to his Father. But when he was yet a great way off, his Father saw him, and had compassion, and ran, and fell on his neck, and kissed him. And the son said unto him, Father, I have sinned against Heaven, and in thy sight, and am no more worthy to be called thy son. But the Father said to his servants, Bring forth the best robe, and put it on him; and put a ring on his hand, and shoes on his feet: and bring hither the fatted calf, and kill it; and let us eat, and be merry: for this my son was dead, and is alive again; he was lost, and is found. And they began to be merry."

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