Dear Child,
Transcription
Dear Child,
A Valentines Letter from God (no verse references) — Erick Reinstedt — 0208 — Page 1 Dear Child, I wanted to let you know how much I love you. I wanted you to know that I see you as my son or daughter, and I am not an imperfect, but a perfect Father. While you do not have a perfect earthly father to relate to, I have given you My Son, Jesus, so that you may see Me and know Me. He is the express image of Me and I have spoken to you through Him and though every man may be a liar, I am true—I can not lie. If you have seen Jesus then you have seen Me, He came to do My will. Look at Him and you will see Me and My heart for you. He came to seek and save the lost. He came to set the captives free. He came to destroy the works of the devil. He came to save you, not to condemn you. That is my heart. That is who I am. What He said, He said because I first said it. What He did, He did because I first did it. My child, I know how to give you good gifts and good things, and I do. All good and perfect gifts in your life are from Me, and all that I have is yours. I offer you living water that your soul will never thirst again. My Word is before you as a lamp unto your feet and a light unto your pathto help keep you from stumbling in the dark. My eyes are on you, and My ears are open to your cry!You shall not want. I will make you to lie down in green pastures, I will lead you beside still waters and along paths of righteousness, and I will restore your soul. I will comfort you. I will prepare a table before you in the presence of your enemies, My goodness and mercy will follow you all the days of your life, and you shall know the truth and the truth will set you free. Do not worry—I work all things together for good to you as you love Me and follow My call. What the enemy intends for evil, I turn to good. Be anxious for nothing, My Son’s peace and joy are yours. I take care of all your needs as your heart draws close to mine—I will supply all of your needs according to My riches. Be assured, I will never leave you nor forsake you, and in Me you will find all treasures of wisdom and knowledge. By My divine power I have given you all things that pertain to life and Godliness, and My grace will be sufficient for you. How much do I love you? I love you so much that I sent My Son to die for you that, believing in Him, you might dwell with Me forever, and not just later, in heaven where I have prepared a place for you, but now, today, for I have come to dwell in you and with you. I stood at the door and knocked and you let Me in and now I dine with you. You are My temple. You are My Holy of Holies, My inner place, My dwelling place. I have made the final sacrifice and I have torn the veil that separated Me from you that you and I may fellowship together, that we may have a relationship with nothing between us. I invite you to come boldly into My presence—I have washed you, sanctified you, and justified you. You are a new creation, the old has passed away and you have become new, and I have sealed you with My Holy Spirit of My promise. As I told My son David, I number your wanderings; I put your tears into My bottle and record them in My book. I am familiar with your sufferings, and I have experienced your temptations. Not even five sparrows sold for a couple of copper coins are forgotten before Me, certainly I will never forget you nor take My eyes off of You. A Valentines Letter from God (no verse references) — Erick Reinstedt — 0208 — Page 2 You may wonder what My love for you looks like. Let Me tell you that My love for you is patient; it is kind; it is not envious or boastful or arrogant or rude. My love for you does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; it does not rejoice in wrongdoing, but rejoices in the truth. It bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. My love for you never fails—it keeps coming and coming and coming. By Me all things were created that are in heaven and that are on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or principalities or powers. All things were created by Me and for Me. Let Me tell you about that, because you need to understand something about it. When there was but a void, I was, and I stared into it, into the blackness, and into it I spoke and My very Word brought forth My desire. I created first the heavens and the earth. I then created light for the earth, and I separated the land from the waters. I covered the land with grass and seeds and trees, and I placed the stars in the sky. I then filled the seas with life, and after that the land. I covered it with animals of all kinds. Finally I created a special place, a place called Eden, which means “pleasure” or “delight,” and then I crowned it all—with you! You see, My child, that while the heavens, the oceans, the trees and flowers and animals that grow and reproduce, the rainbow, the Northern Lights, the coral reefs and their the brilliant colored fish, the magnificent eagle and all the other wonders of My creation that astound and marvel and please you may seem to you to be My crowning glory—may seem to you more amazing than you can fathom—you need to understand that all that was just the opening act. You are My crowning glory! You are My greatest creation! No one forced Me to create you. I did it by choice, knowing all you would ever do and not do, and knowing all that your choices would cost Me. Understand, My love, that all of creation was just the frame—it still awaited the picture it was created for, it still awaited My pride and joy...and that was you. You are the one reserved to have a relationship with Me. You were the one created in My image. You are the one I gave My creation to for your use and rule. You were the one I destined to spend forever in My presence. You were the one I called My own. You were the one I died for—chasing you like a shepherd chases his lost sheep—drawing you to Me. You were the one I placed My Spirit in. You were the one who became My dwelling place. You were before My eyes as I made all the rest. Do not be fooled, My child—it was not for man in general that I did this—you are not just “a part of the package” that is “thrown in” with the rest in a “take one you have to take it all” deal. You, yourself, are known by Me and precious to Me. I know the very number of hairs on your head. As I told My son Jeremiah—before I formed you in the womb I knew you; before you were born I set you apart. You are not a surprise to Me, nor an accident. I made you by choice, in love. I formed your inward parts; I covered you in your mother’s womb. You are fearfully and wonderfully made—your frame was not hidden from Me when I made you in secret—My eyes saw your substance when you were still unformed. You are mine, forever, and nothing can separate you from My love! I am for you, and when I am for you who can be against you? You have thought that if I knew the real you I could not love you, but I have searched you and I do know you. I know your sitting down and your rising up. I understand your thoughts afar off—they are not hidden or a surprise to Me. Beloved, I know you and I love you. Just as I knew Peter’s denial of me, and Paul’s murder of my children, and Noah’s drunkenness, and Moses doubt, and Rahab’s prostitution and I have loved them and called them My own, I know your failings too and I love you and call you My own. Remember, My child, I do not look at outward things as man does, A Valentines Letter from God (no verse references) — Erick Reinstedt — 0208 — Page 3 but I look at your heart. Now I ask you, “Does this scare you, that I look at your heart? That I see its darkest parts?” Don’t let it, My child—as you have confessed your sins to Me I have cleansed you of all unrighteousness and I have separated you from your sins as far as the east is from the west. I have forgiven you. I have released you. There is no condemnation for you. You are hidden in My Son, and that was My choice to do and I did it freely, because I love you. Remember My Samaritan daughter, your sister whom I found by the well, who’d had many men in her life and today she dwells with Me in paradise. Remember the thief who hung next to Me on the cross who today dwells with Me in paradise as your brother and My Son. Remember Peter, who long before he found his strength in Me I already gave a new name to—the stone, the rock—calling those things about him that were not yet as though they already were. I, too, see who you are in Me, and not where you have fallen and will fall. Think, again, if you will My child, of Rahab’s prostitution, of Abraham’s cowardice while in a foreign land with a beautiful wife, of Noah’s drunkenness, of Sarah’s doubt and laughter...and then think of how I recorded their story in My letter to the Hebrew believers. I did not record their failures, but their success. It is their victories I held to their name, not their defeats. It is their stands of faith I boasted about to the world as their proud Father. Think of My son and your brother David who, though he stumbled, I have called a man after My own heart. I rejoice over each of these, all of them, even with all their mistakes, and they each await you in heaven for an eternity of rejoicing together! You are, My child, as white as snow. You may not feel that, but I have told you that you walk by faith and not by sight, fixing your eyes not on what you feel but on what I have told you, anchored in the unseen and not the seen. I promise you, You are Mine, and I do love you, and I call you my own. You are a chosen one, a royal priest, My own special person, and I have called you out of darkness into My marvelous light. You are a joint heir of Mine with My Son, Jesus and I am your Maker, your husband. The LORD of hosts is My name. With everlasting kindness I have mercy on you. For the mountains shall depart and the hills be removed, but My kindness shall not depart from you. I am your God, forever and ever, and I will be your guide even unto death. I have loved you with an everlasting love; I have drawn you with loving-kindness. How can I give you up? My heart is turned over within Me. Your prayers to Me—your talking with Me—are like a sweet fragrance or incense to Me and I surround My throne with them. I love you as I love my own Son! When you are broken hearted today I am near to you. When you wait upon me I renew your strength and I make you to mount up with wings like eagles, and when you arrive in heaven I will wipe away every tear from your eyes; and there shall be no more death, nor sorrow, nor crying and no more pain. I am love, and I abide in you! My thoughts that I think toward you are thoughts of peace and not of evil, to give you a future and a hope, and you can be confident of this very thing, that I who have begun a good work in you will be faithful to complete it. I promise you that as you honor Me I will honor you, and when you call upon Me and go and pray to Me, I will listen to you. You will seek Me and find Me, when you search for Me with all your heart. Even if I chasten and correct you, I do it because of My love for you that it might yield the peaceable fruit of righteousness in you. Even when you sorrow I give you reason to do so differently than the others, not like those A Valentines Letter from God (no verse references) — Erick Reinstedt — 0208 — Page 4 who have no hope. Why? How? Because your hope and your faith no longer need to be limited by you and your ability, but now have a new object. I, the King of Kings and Lord of Lords, the Good Shepherd, the Wonderful Counselor, the great I Am, the Maker of the Universe, the Spotless Lamb, the Alpha and Omega, the Beginning and the End am now the object of your hope and faith, and I know no boundaries, there is no power greater than Mine, and My love for you knows no end. I give to you a living hope and a faith that moves mountains—a faith that is not in the wisdom of men but in My power. I am the Father of mercies and the God of comfort and I will comfort you in all tribulation. Cast all your burdens upon Me because I care for you, and I will sustain you—I will not permit you to be moved. There is no temptation to great for you to bear as you walk with Me. As you avoid the counsel of the ungodly and the path of sinners, and as you delight in My law and meditate upon it day and night you will be blessed, whatever you do will prosper, and you will be like a tree firmly planted by the rivers of water that brings forth its fruit in season and whose leaf will not wither. In My presence you will find fulness of joy. Delight in Me and I will give you the desires of your heart. My child, I rejoice in you. I sing for you. I take pleasure in you. As I continually pursued Israel, longing for their heart, I have searched after you with all of My heart, and I and all of heaven were filled with joy when you chose to come home to Me! Now, My child, your name is written in heaven! Your name is written in My Book of Life! Do not tremble, My child. Do not live in fear as though you are on the losing side, but rather, go in boldness for you are Mine, and I have defeated the enemy! Go, knowing you are loved. Go, knowing you are Mine! Go into all the nations! Go into all the world teaching them about Me, making followers of Me, teaching them to obey all I have commanded you. You are My chosen preacher of My Good News. You are My chosen custodian of the only message and power that stands in opposition to the work of the devil in the world! You are now privy to the mysteries of Mine and the things of My Spirit. You are who I have called to be the salt of the earth, the light of the world—to comfort those in trouble as I have comforted you. It is you I have chosen to be My hands and feet, doing My will, continuing My mission of seeking the lost and destroying the works of the devil. In My name you will cast out demons. In My name you will lay hands on the sick and they will recover. In fact, you will do greater works than even My Son did on earth, and I look for ways to show Myself strong and mighty on your behalf. Go in courage. Be strong and not afraid. Your weapons in Me are mighty for pulling down strongholds of the enemy, and as you humble yourself in My sight I will lift you up. I don’t give you a Spirit of fear, but of power and love and sound mind. You are more than a conqueror through Me. Your effective, fervent prayer avails much, and whatsoever you ask according to My will you have. I am on your side. I want you to succeed. I have not just placed My desires and will in you, but I work in you to bring them to pass. I send you in My authority. I send you in My name. You have an anointing from Me. You are My soldier. You are My ambassador, and My kingdom is not in word, but in power! Nothing is impossible with Me. When you speak in My name and when you act in My stead it is as if I have spoken and acted. When they reject you they are rejecting Me! You carry My name. You carry My authority. As you transform your mind to Mine you will prove My good and A Valentines Letter from God (no verse references) — Erick Reinstedt — 0208 — Page 5 perfect will. When you resist the devil he will flee from you, you will stand against him when you put on My armor and take up My sword, and you will overcome him by the blood of My Son, by the power of the testimony, and by not loving your life unto death. Your faith, My child, is the victory that overcomes the world! Though the devil would love you to think that you stand alone, you in fact co-labor with Me. When the demons tremble before Me remember, it is Me in you that they see! Greater am I in you than he who is in the world! Do not be dismayed, the battle is not yours but Mine! Never, ever forget, My child, that even when you cannot see them, those who are with you are more than those who are with the enemy, that My angel encamps around you to deliver you, and that the angels are there to minister to you, who will inherit salvation. You, My child, can do all things through Me who strengthen you. My child, let Me close for now with this. I know that you will not always understand My ways or My “whys”—My thoughts and ways are often past finding out for you—but you can trust Me. I will not make you trust Me, but I give you My love as a reason to. Greater love has no one than this—than to lay down one’s life for his friends—and I have lain down My life for yours. I stretch out the heavens like a curtain, and spread them out like a tent to dwell in, but you are My beloved, you are My bride, and to you alone do I say, “Sanctify yourself—set yourself apart for Me—for tomorrow I will do wonders among you!” Remember, and never, ever forget. I made you. I love you. And, lo, I will be with you always, even unto the end of the age! Your Father, God Questions? Comments? Contact Erick Reinstedt (Pastor) at (805) 472-9325, or you can email him through True Life Christian Fellowship’s web page contact link at www.truelifecf.org. An audio reading of this letter is available in the Resources & Study Aids section at www.truelifecf.org—the reading of just this letter is available in the Audio Treasures section, and the reading plus the full teaching that preceded it is available in the Audio Teachings section that has Erick’s teachings, in the teaching given 2/17/08 called Choices VI. You can also download a PDF of this letter with or without the verse references in the Misc. Resources section.