Hi curious visitor! Welcome to Abba’s Dearly Beloved Blog! Thanks so much for checking this blog out!
So intrepid reader, you may be curious to find out a bit more about me! So here I will share a bit about my story and why i decided to write a blog on intimacy with God, discovering your identity and encountering his Father Heart love. My name is Benjamin, I’ve been a committed follower of Jesus for 28 years. My journey as a Christian seems to start as a cliche with receiving Jesus into my heart at a young age and recommitting at 16. Yet Abba’s Dearly Beloved blog has come in part from my own story of discovering in my heart the joyful reality of what it means to be fully accepted in the redeeming love of Christ as a beloved son of a God who i can truly know as a perfect Father. For me the gospel message of the finished work of Christ at the cross and the reality of my new identity as God’s child welcomed home in robes Jesus clothed me with sat well in my mind but only slowly was an encountered reality in my heart. Consequently, my Christian walk was a performance driven minefield where not only God’s acceptance but my own was conditional on whether i kept as close to a flawless record as i could manage. As my desperate attempts at striving for perfection failed, i became more and more engulfed in a quagmire of shame. I found it hard to face my own imperfection and weaknesses and had the impulse to hide and suppress from others, God and even myself the broken reflection of what i felt i should be.
Thankfully Jesus met me with redeeming love and grace time and again through scripture revelation, the kindness of others, in worship and in my most acute failings which over several years has melted my heart and shown me what it truly means to be loved. John 5:19 is a verse i had read several times over the years without understanding its significance: Jesus did nothing by himself, he did what he saw his Father doing. The truth that this outrageous love that Jesus expressed to each of us at the cross and that i encountered in moments of brokenness as well as in mountain top moments of my life originated in the heart of God, began to introduce me to God’s loving Father heart.
Attending the School of Ministry at Catch the Fire Church in Toronto Canada, in 2018-19, stands out in my journey thus far as a time of deep intimacy with God and profound discovery of my God given identity. One afternoon during a time of prayer ministry, i experienced the power of the Holy Spirit and felt God say to me, “you are not illegitimate son.” I had a vision of God putting a robe on me and a ring on my finger as the Father did to his returned son in the prodigal son story found in Luke 15. This moment can only be described as a moment of being undone in my heart by the one who created it and is one example of many from the last year that has birthed a new love and intimacy with God.
So my vision today is to walk in the fullness of my identity in him but also this: that you dear reader discover that you really are lovable to a God and that if you receive Jesus, you accept an invitation to a new identity as a son or daughter who can draw close to the majesty and author of love, God your perfect Father.
Abba's Dearly Beloved 