Shiloh Place Ministries
Seeing The World Experience the Father's Healing Love
Through the Hearts of the Leaders
www.shilohplace.org

Being the Message

This is an excerpt from the original article which can be found on the Shiloh Place web site (click on link below). Jack has written a moving tribute to one of his team of ministers who died this year of malaria which was contracted during a miinistry trip to Uganda.

Being the message (spiritual fathering and mothering) simply means manifesting the Father's love to another person who is in need of love, acceptance, affirmation, and comfort. Hurting people usually are not drawn to someone whose life is perfect and has rarely been in need. They are more likely drawn to someone who has experienced the devastation they themselves have known, but have found hope and peace in the midst of the storm. Being the message means comforting others with the comfort you received in your time of crisis. The one hurting then begins to experience the Father's love, acceptance, and grace through you and start seeking to find the source in Him. When the goodness and compassion of the Father's love begin to penetrate your character, His character in you is then seen by the world and begins drawing many to the Father- spiritual fathering and mothering!

PRACTICAL TIPS FOR BEING THE MESSAGE

It is difficult being a father until you've been a son. Being the message must be an overflow of your own experience in the Father's love, or else you can easily enter into aggressive striving as you try earning greater levels of love and acceptance.

Ask God how you can join Him in expressing His love to those in need instead of asking Him to bless what you are doing.

Accept people the way they are and do not try to change them. Unconditional love and acceptance are the best motivators for change.

Look for people who are in need of love, honor, value, and affirmation; then look for small ways to meet those needs.

Give every person you meet the gift of honor by showing interest in their life, listening to them, asking questions, remembering and speaking their name, and treating them as one of God's special creations.

Look for small opportunities to go out of the way to serve others, looking out not only for your own interests, but also for the interests of others.

Build a bridge of trust by openly sharing your feelings and being transparent in your witness of how God's grace has brought change to the areas in which you have struggled on your journey.

Show genuine care, compassion, and empathy when others are hurting by listening to their pain and then sharing how God comforted you during similar situations.
Look for the good and potential in every person. See them for what they can become by God's grace, not how they seem today.

Never criticize or speak down of other people, groups, denominations, or churches. If you are not a nice person to the waiter but you are to the person you are with, you are not a nice person. People will easily lose respect and trust for you, and any godly influence you may have had over them is lost.

Freely admit your faults and weaknesses and seek forgiveness from others each time you misrepresent the Father's love to them.

Do not strive to be right or be argumentative in proving your point. People who must be right do not provide a secure atmosphere of grace and unconditional love.
Walk in truth and integrity in all you do and say. Trust is lost when you exaggerate or don't follow through with what you say.

Look for many opportunities to rejoice, be merry, laugh, and have fun.

Daily pray for God's grace to begin practicing these principles at home and with family. They will then begin to flow naturally in the streets. These were the principles modeled to Doug during his hour of the dark night of his soul in the early 1990's. As he experienced love, acceptance, honor, and value, he was motivated to repentance and began to enter into deeper measures of the Father's healing love. The principles then became foundational values in his life and ministry.

Doug's transformed life will not only be missed by his family, friends, and the SPM team, but his fatherly hugs and influence will also be missed in the nations. His death will not be in vain if only a few of us are motivated by Doug's life and take up his mission to make the Father's healing love known to the next person we meet! I wonder how many of us are willing to sincerely pray: "Father, may I pick up where Doug's life left off. May I humble myself daily to receive Your love and then speak words of blessing and affirmation to those who are downcast. May I embrace the spiritual orphans to my heart with affectionate hugs and be an instrument of comfort to those who have no sense of love, honor, or value. May my presence manifest the Father's love to the next person I meet."

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PO Box 5
Conway, SC 29528, USA
(843) 365-8990
http://www.shilohplace.org
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