The road believers travel is broken with twists, turns, and detours into worldliness and manmade religion. Thankfully, God uses that broken road to draw us back toward the destination our hearts long for intimacy with Him. In Agape Road, author Bob Mumford illustrates how to avoid taking detours by abiding in Jesus. Experiencing God's unconditional agape love gives us the security, identity, and belonging we cannot get any other way.

CHAPTER 1

Journey to the Father

Along the journey we commonly forget its goal.

- Nietzsche

When I was 13 years old, my father abandoned me. My parents were in the middle of an ugly divorce, and I had been visiting my father in Tampa , Florida . As he was driving me home to Atlantic City , New Jersey , where I lived with my mother and five sisters, I, like a typical know-it-all teenager, kept arguing with him, heatedly defending my mother. We

were nearing Baltimore , Maryland , when the argument became overly intense. Suddenly, he stopped the car and said, "Get out." I thought he wanted me to see if we had a flat tire, so I walked around the car to check out the problem. When I got to his window, he rolled it down and I leaned toward him so he could tell me what he thought was wrong with the car. With rage on his face he looked at me and said, "You are no good. You never have been any good. You never will be any good." He rolled up the window and drove away, leaving me standing by the side of the road more than 100 miles from home with less than a dollar in my pocket. Stunned by what had just happened, I stood in the street for the longest time feeling absolutely abandoned, trying to figure out what I was going to do. My sense of what it meant to be a Mumford was severely shaken; but my street-kid survival skills kicked in, and I hitchhiked home, subtly trying to let the different drivers know I had not eaten. About 15 hours later, one very hungry boy finally made it to Atlantic City . This experience left deep impressions in my person.

Serious Consequences

When I arrived home, something deep and unexplainable had changed in me; I felt like an entirely different person. In order to deal with this sense of rejection, shame, failure, and loss, I chose anger and superiority as a cover-up. Like many young people, I remember making a childhood vow to "never, ever trust another person as long as I live."

The following year, I dropped out of school, taking menial employment in order to support my mom and five sisters in my father's absence. I finished my GED in the Navy, graduated from college, and earned my Masters of Divinity Degree, but even after several decades of successful ministry, the consequences of my father's rejection were very much alive. Eventually, I was forced to recognize that I had deep, internal anger directed at no one in particular, accompanied by fear, more accurately free-floating anxiety—both without any obvious source or cause.

The fear and anger revealed themselves in a critical mouth and false superiority. These problems were very real; and I knew they were displeasing to God, yet I was unable to get free from them. Reading more Bible verses or ministering to more people certainly did not deal with the issues. I knew that anger, fear, and a critical mouth were not normal and that these problems would always present a barrier to the intimacy with God for which my heart longed. Like many who have preceded me in this search, I felt bound in heart and conscience to find answers to these problems both for me personally and for others.

Because we must live in a less than perfect world, human failure, mistakes, and injuries, like my dad's rejection of me, take their toll on us, often appearing and reappearing many years later. Failure, disappointment, or betrayal from any loved one is always difficult to manage. However, if God can restore me, He can restore you. It is not magic. What I have to say is not experience oriented; it is a journey. These lessons have come at great personal expense, so have one on me! Allow me, by means of the illustrations and diagrams in this book, to take you toward God's land of promises.

Barriers To Intimacy

In order to deal with barriers to intimacy, we must put the things that hinder us from having an intimate relationship with God and with others into a personal context. First are the satanic and demonic hindrances. Satan is very real regardless of what our culture, modern philosophy, or liberal Christianity thinks. Satan's goal—whether he uses us against ourselves or attempts to push us into thoughts or behaviors that are cruel or unusual—is to keep us from the Father. The second hindrance is the original fall, the effect of which has caused us to turn in upon ourselves. This is depicted by the death line which is explained in the next section.

We live in a fallen world. The result is unpredictable people and unfulfilled expectations. God often gets blamed for life not working out as we might expect. Most Bible-centered people have a fairly good grasp on these first two hindrances. This book addresses the third category. The third hindrance to intimacy with the Father is human failure. This predicament is the result of the first two. Human failures are mistakes and injuries whose origin and source, for the most part, come from us. They take their toll on us. My dad's injury toward me as a young teenager falls in this category, revealing itself so many years later. Failure, disappointment, or injury from any loved one is very difficult to embrace. When I became the father of four children, and saw how inadequate and unprepared I was to be a parent, I understood human failure. The fact that my four children (and all their children) are serving God is a miracle! It certainly was not because of my great parenting skills, but simply a result of the grace of God on us as a family.

Being Welcomed Home

When God created man in His image, His desire and intent was to have a relationship of unbroken intimacy with us. Originally, nothing was hidden between God and Adam and Eve. They felt at home resting and abiding with God and they felt no shame. Then God said, "But from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat from it you shall surely die" (Gen. 2:17).

When Adam and Eve transgressed, it caused a separation between God and His creation, and death came upon all men (see Rom. 5:12). The death line represents this broken relationship between God and His creation, and as a result, sin, shame, and guilt came upon all humanity. The death line is the entrance of sin into the world that alienated us from God, from ourselves, and from each other. Our human response, like Adam and Eve's, was to run, hide, and shift blame. Paul, many years later, said, "You were dead in your trespasses and sins" (Eph. 2:1).

God, however, transcended the death line by sending us Jesus who came to take us back home to the Father. Our path to God is Jesus, the Word of God made flesh, the Scriptures, and the Holy Spirit. We cross the death line by way of the new birth or being born again. Because Jesus and the Father are one (see John 10:30), and because we are one with Jesus (see 1 Cor. 6:17), intimacy is possible. He made a way for us to be included in fellowship within the relational structure of the Trinity (see Matt. 28:19, John 16:27; 17:22-26). It is impossible for rivalry to exist within the Trinity; God, as a Father, designed a route to Himself so that we could enjoy the same intimacy with Him, as does His Son. Ephesians 2:18 says, "For through Him we both have our access in one Spirit to the Father." Christ came as God Incarnate in order to show us the way home and give us the opportunity to be restored to intimacy with God our Father (see 2 Cor. 5:19). The journey home is more than salvation; it is His promise (see John 14:21-23).

While ministering in Peru some years ago, a 90-year-old Quechua tribal Indian elder came up to the platform and began talking to me in his dialect, which was then translated into Spanish and then into English for me. He said, "I want to know the God you are talking about. Why didn't somebody tell me and my tribe about this sooner?" So, back and forth through the interpreters, we introduced him to Jesus. I felt such compassion for him; even at his age, there had awakened within him a real hunger for God. I prayed that God would baptize him in the Holy Spirit and receive him into His intimate fellowship. Suddenly, the Indian started talking rapidly, and by the joy on his face, it was obvious that he was enjoying something. I asked what he was saying and the interpreter, puzzled, said he did not know. Gradually, we discovered that he was enjoying a new-found relationship with God the Father. He had been welcomed back home. We were humbled by the realization that the Father had suddenly and powerfully set His love on a man who had never heard the gospel before. Like Cornelius in Acts 10, he had been invited into immediate fellowship and intimacy with the Trinity. We all remember the weeks after our new birth when we were so full of His love that we could hug a tree! The love of God that broke loose in my own spirit in 1954 has been re-apprehended as a result of understanding this Agape Road journey. Now, after many years, not only are my lights on, but somebody is home! A whole new sense of wanting to share the life and love of the Lord to a hurting generation has been rekindled.

Jesus said, "I am the way, and the truth, and the life; no one comes to the Father, but through Me" (John 14:6). Jesus' job description was to bring us to the Father, restoring our relationship of love and intimacy that went astray because of the fall. God, the Father, was seeking us through the person of His Son. Christ intends to bring us to intimacy by way of the Agape (ä-gä´pa) Road. The route, as well as the goal is "not of yourselves, it is the gift of God" (Eph. 2:8). The fact that He had to come to us is proof that we could not come to Him.

The moment we are born again, we do have intimacy with God, but it is sporadic, and often interrupted. This intimacy is new and immature (see 1 Pet. 2:2), needing to be cultivated into an abiding relationship. Agape is the Greek word for love and the Agape Road is just that—a road of love that He created to bring us to Himself. It is important to understand that Heaven is not the goal. If you are a Christian and you die, you have to go to Heaven; there is no place else to go! I believe in Heaven—it is real and beautiful. It is everything and more than we could imagine. But many people have mistakenly made Heaven the goal or object of their life. There is life after being born again. God, as a Father, wants to know us (see 1 Cor. 8:3) and longs for us to know Him in this present life on earth. John 17:3 says, "This is eternal life, that they might know Thee, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom Thou hast sent." It is such an important theme in the New Testament that Jesus uses the term "sent Me" 40 times. He wants us to be comfortable in God's presence. As a Father, God wants to be known and experienced (see 2 Cor. 6:18). Jesus was sent to reintroduce us to our loving heavenly Father.

Intimacy

Another way of understanding the word intimacy is "into me sees." God's heart cry is that we know Him and open ourselves so that He can know us. Agape is a way of knowing. Learning the principles of the Agape Road facilitates our finding each other. He is the One who planted in us the Eternal Seed. The Eternal Seed is the ultimate source of intimacy by reason of the new birth (see 1 Pet. 1:23). When Christ is formed in us (see Gal. 4:19), intimacy between God and us becomes possible. We now seek to nourish, cultivate, and protect it until it comes to maturity and fruitfulness.

Intimacy is so important to God that He made a promise which reveals His Father's heart: "For all shall know Me, from the least to the greatest of them" (Heb. 8:11b). We can see His basic intent in the Scripture. "And I will be a father to you, and you shall be sons and daughters to Me…" (2 Cor. 6:18). We do not have to wait until we are in Heaven for this intimate relationship with our Father to happen. The abiding relationship gained on the Agape Road allows God to see into us and for us to see into Him. Out of this comes a joining or a heart relationship. This intimate relationship with God is a mystery that is difficult to define, but very much the normal Christian life which belongs to every one of us as believers. When my awareness of who the Father is and what He is really like began to increase, the fear and anger within my person began to subside.

I began to experientially understand that Jesus was eager for me to walk this Agape Road to come to a relationship with His Father. When we begin to know what the Father is really like, we start to love Him. As one of the early Church fathers said, "It is impossible to know God as He really is, and not love Him."

God Desires Three Things From Us

God, as a Father, seeks something specific from a relationship with us. The question we need to ask is: Are we willing to give Him what He is seeking? First, He wants to see our face. Most people are aware of seeking God's face; however, it never dawns on them that He might want to see their face. It still amazes me that God Almighty even wants to see our face (see 1 Cor. 8:3). "O my dove…in the seclusion of the clefts in the solid rock, in the sheltered and secret place of the cliff, let me see your face, let me hear your voice; for your voice is sweet, and your face is lovely" (Song 2:14b AMP). Most of us feel intimidated to show our real face or personality to anyone, let alone to God. Guilt, shame, and self-condemnation cause us to run, hide, and shift blame (see Gen. 3:10-13).

We all wear masks and create impressions to prevent others from knowing who we really are. Scripture tells us that God is no respecter of persons (see Deut. 10:17), meaning He does not show partiality. The Greek word for persons means "masks"—God is no respecter of masks. God wants to go past the mask and get to know the real person even when we are running, hiding, or shifting blame. When Jacob wrestled with God he said, "I have seen God face to face, yet my life has been preserved" (Gen. 32:30b). I am sure he was remembering Cain saying, "Behold, Thou hast driven me this day from the face of the ground; and from Thy face I shall be hidden" (Gen. 4:14a). Only by grace are we allowed to see the face of God and have Him see our faces. When God sent His Son to break the death line, He made this kind of intimacy available to us. Intimacy is a process, not just a onetime experience. This process will come clear as our understanding of the Agape Road unfolds. First Corinthians 8:3 tells us that God has given us the privilege of knowing Him and seeks the privilege of being known by Him.

Intimacy with God must start with our new birth because before that we are spiritually dead. Once we have acknowledged Jesus as Lord and Savior and embrace water baptism, we are given the privilege to penetrate the veil where we see the face of God in the person of Jesus Christ (see John 14:9; 2 Cor. 4:6). We can see God and live for the simple reason that we have been buried and resurrected with Christ in water baptism.

Second, He desires to spend time with us communing together. Many of us love God but do not want to be with Him because we are not comfortable in His presence. God did not create us like this; it is a direct result of the death line. Adam and Even had fellowship or closeness with God—He walked in the Garden in the cool of the day looking for them (see Gen. 3:8-9), but that closeness or intimacy was broken when Adam and Even refused His limits. Since then, all of mankind has had to deal with that inner desire to return to a place of intimacy with his or her Creator (see 2 Cor. 6:18).

Third, God desires our unshared love. He guards this love jealously. He does not want us to share our love for Him with anything that is illegal. It may seem strange to apply that word to God, but the Scripture does. Exodus 34:14b says, "The Lord, whose name is Jealous, is a jealous [impassioned] God." In its pure form, jealous means "vigilant in guarding something or loving protection." This describes the way God cares for each of His children. God is jealous for us; He is not jealous of us. Another translation of James 4:6 says, "The Spirit which He made to dwell in us, jealously yearns for the entire devotion of the heart." 1 In other words, God, by the person of the Holy Spirit, is always seeking to cultivate a love relationship with those of us who will respond. It is our love for Him and His love for us that protects and guards us from that which is injurious.

When I joined the Navy, all my needs were met including clothes, food, haircuts, travel, medicine, etc. Of course, the Navy does not take care of everyone in this way, just those who have enlisted in the Navy. This is the essence of God causing all things to work together for good to those who love Him (see Rom. 8:28-30). God as a Father does not function by determinism or fatalism. The only people this scriptural prescription works for are those who seek a relationship with Him as Father.

God acts on behalf of those who love Him (see Is. 64:4). It is stated in the Old Testament like this, "You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might" (Deut. 6:5). Father God wants us to set our love upon Him in such a way that we will not share it illegally with anyone or anything. God, as a Father, asks that we gather up all we are, all we have, and all we hope to be and place our affection on Him as evidence of our love. This we do without reservation or compromise. This is the meaning of "seek first the kingdom of God " (Matt. 6:33a).

God has the ability to govern all things in our journey toward His purposes. Romans 8:28-30 requires us to acknowledge that God knows us, that the circumstances we are in will do something in our character, and that it is God who is at work, not luck or cosmic powers. God has a purpose in every event—to conform us to His likeness. Thus, He is increasing our capacity to know Him and for Him to know us (see John 17:3). The intended result is intimacy with Father God (see 2 Cor. 6:16-18).

How God Wants To Be Known

For years, my concept of God's glory was splendor like an extraterrestrial glow or the power of God coming in some supernatural way. I never thought it had anything to do with His character or nature. When Moses asked God to show him His glory, God said He would proclaim the name of the Lord before him (see Ex. 33:18-19). God then, in self-revelation, explains to Moses the content of His glory which is His seven hidden attributes:

And the Lord descended in the cloud and stood there with him as he called upon the name of the Lord. Then the Lord passed by in front of him and proclaimed, "The Lord, the Lord God, compassionate and gracious, slow to anger and abounding in loving-kindness [mercy] and truth; who keeps loving-kindness [faithful] for thousands, who forgives iniquity, transgression and sin… (Exodus 34:5-7).

God's character or DNA is the content of His glory and the significance of His name. The breadth of meaning in these seven words that God uses to reveal Himself is spectacular. "For since the creation of the world God's invisible qualities—His eternal power and divine nature— have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that men are without excuse" (Rom. 1:20 NIV). This is not Bob Mumford's idea of what God is like; it is God's personal revelation of Himself.

If God had not revealed Himself, we could not know Him (see 2 Cor. 2:8-16). God's glory is the manifestation of His communicable attributes that are hidden from the world (see John 17:25). God is a Spirit; He cannot be known unless He chooses to reveal Himself. Of course, the depths and complexities of God are ineffable or impossible to clearly explain. God also has incommunicable attributes:

He is eternal, omnipresent, omniscient, immutable, and self-revealed (we cannot know Him unless He reveals Himself). When Jesus was on earth, He laid aside the incommunicable attributes—picking them up again after His death and resurrection (see John 17:5).

When sin entered the world, it released the twisted desire for us to be like God, grasping for the incommunicable attributes and essentially rejecting the communicable. For example, stubbornness is actually immutability perverted. The communicable attributes consist of the image of God that is restored to us in Christ. These are the aspects of His person that Father God wants the world to know about. The only way the world can see God's hidden nature or what He is actually like is by means of the person of Christ revealing Himself through the Body of Christ—you and me (see Heb. 1:3; John 14:9). As Christ is "formed in us" (see Gal. 4:19),God's personality becomes evident in us. Matthew 5:43-48 teaches us to love our enemies that we may be the sons and daughters of our Father. This shows us the necessity of God's love being replicated. Without the effective and active presence of His attributes, we are not allowing His glory to come through our own person. Jesus, in teaching us the implications of this, states it clearly, "Let your light shine before men in such a way that they may see your good works, and glorify your Father who is in heaven" (Matt. 5:16). The objective evidence that God is our Father is that His DNA is revealed in us as His very own family. We will look at each of God's seven communicable attributes.

Compassion (Strong's #7349 / #3628). It is pity or empathy, inward affection, and tender mercy. The Greek word splagchnon—splangkh´-non is used 111 times in Scripture and means bowels of compassion or mercy (see Phil. 2:1). Webster's 1828 Dictionary gives us the best explanation of compassion without attempting a full word study. Suffering with another; painful sympathy; a sensation of sorrow excited by the distress or misfortunes of another; pity; commiseration. Compassion is a mixed passion, compounded of love and sorrow; at least some portion of love generally attends the

pain or regret, or is excited by it. Extreme distress of an enemy even changes enmity into at least temporary affection. Compassion means my insides are moved for you in a supernatural way. It is different than sympathy, which is easier to experience. Scripture says that Jesus "being compassionate, forgave their iniquity" (Ps. 78:38).

The father of the prodigal son "felt compassion for him, and ran and embraced him, and kissed him" (Luke 15:20). Paul asked for compassion to be present in the Philippian church (see 2:1) wondering at its lack or absence. Compassion was missing in the Levite but not in the Samaritan. The New Testament states clearly that compassion is something we should be exerting (see Col. 3:12).

Grace (Strong's #2587 / #5485). This is one of the most beautiful words in Hebrew, but it is not easily translated into English. This word is the very source of understanding God's person. It means to find favor, kindly, friendly, benevolent, courteous, disposed to show or dispense grace and forgive offenses, and to impart unmerited blessings. "But You are a God of forgiveness, gracious and merciful [compassionate], slow to become angry, and full of unfailing love and mercy…" (Neh. 9:17b NLT). "And all were speaking well of Him, and wondering at the gracious words which were falling from His lips" (Luke 4:22a).

Graciousness is the mark of the Lord Jesus who is the exact representation of God's character (see Heb. 1:3). Christ was gracious because God is gracious. Slow to anger (Strong's #639 / #750 / #3115). Longsuffering is fortitude, forbearance, or patience. It means not being easily provoked and able to patiently bear injuries. "The Lord is slow to anger and abundant in loving-kindness [mercy], forgiving iniquity and transgression…" (Num. 14:18).

Journey to the Father

" Do you think lightly of the riches of His kindness and forbearance [tolerance] and patience…? (Rom. 2:4). " But let everyone be quick to hear, slow to speak and slow to anger " (Jas. 1:19b).

Personally, nothing causes me to press into Jesus more than my own weakness of anger. When we understand how slow to anger God really is and then see ourselves, we can be overwhelmed by the chasm. When we think that we are a representation of Father God to our children and others close to us, it is no wonder they often struggle to find Him. As living epistles, we fail to reveal God's glory to the very ones He loves so deeply.

It was anger that caused Moses, the meekest man on earth, to miss God's highest for his own life. When Moses struck the rock in anger (see Num. 20), it was a distortion of the glory of God. Moses misrepresented God as one who is easily angered. Amazingly, the water flowed irrespective of Moses' anger; however, he was refused the privilege of entering the Promised Land with the people whom he had led. It is important to note

that Moses did not lose his salvation—he appears later on the Mount of Transfiguration with Jesus (see Matt. 17:3), but he lost the opportunities and privileges that were part of his earthly inheritance. Mercy (Strong's #2617 / #1656). Mercy is mildness and tenderness of heart which disposes a person to overlook injuries or to treat an offender better than he deserves. There is no word in English precisely synonymous with mercy in its original language. "The Lord is longsuffering and abundant in mercy, forgiving iniquity and transgression…" (Num. 14:18 NKJV). "…I desire mercy and not sacrifice" (Matt. 9:13a NKJV). "Be merciful, just as your Father is merciful" (Luke 6:36). Again,

the appeal is for us to reveal mercy because God is merciful. This is the essence of the Christian life, leading us on the journey to the freedom that He promised. The injury of the Church toward a hurting world has been failing to give mercy after receiving His mercy in such abundance.

Behaving like this is a fast way to get into trouble with the Father. Truth (Strong's #571 / #225). Truth is conformity with fact or reality; exact accordance with that which is, has been, or shall be. Jesus said to him, "I am the way, and the truth, and the life; no one comes to the Father, but through Me" (John 14:6). Truth is a person, the Lord Jesus Christ, who is the Word of God. "My mouth will utter truth" (Prov. 8:7a).

"Sanctify them in the truth; Your word is truth (John 17:17). Truth is the nature of God because God is reality. The closer we get to reality, the closer we are to God. It was truth, Jesus said, which would make us free (see John 8:32). Faithfulness (Strong's #2617 / #4103). The Greek word is hesed meaning fixed, determined love, to be kept, guarded, watched over, and preserved. This is covenantal faithfulness. Once God gives Himself covenantally, it is impossible for Him to desert or abandon the person or the covenant (see Heb. 13:8). It is firm adherence to truth and duty, true to allegiance, careful to observe all compacts, treaties, contracts, or vows.

In other words, true to one's word. God's affection is what makes the covenant. "Know therefore that the Lord your God, He is God, the faithful God, who keeps His covenant and His loving kindness to a thousandth generation with those who love Him and keep His commandments" (Deut. 7:9). No one reading the Old Testament could ever doubt the covenantal faithfulness of God. We need only read Nehemiah 9 or Psalm 78 to be overwhelmed at the manner in which God is seen faithfully cultivating the relationship with Israel who does nothing but violate the relationship and rebel against Him.

Christ is the covenant maker—the agreement is between Him and His Father, not between God and us. Hebrews 7:20-22 explains that the covenant between the Father and the Son is forever. This arrangement cannot and will not change. Jesus explains that "no one comes to the Father, but through Me" (John 14:6b). This exclusive place of coming to God by means of Christ the Son is seen in Paul's writing when he uses the phrase "in Christ" 88 times. Christ keeps the covenant on our behalf; we enter as participants of His grace and recipients of His covenant faithfulness.

No matter where we go or what we do, God will remain faithful to love, cultivate us out of our sin, and if necessary, discipline us into the freedom of His Kingdom. In light of this, the Scripture, "I will never leave you nor forsake you" (Heb. 13:5b NKJV) can be seen as more of a threat than a promise. If we think we are going to escape God, we are mistaken. When He sets His covenant faithfulness on us, we have only two ways to go: the easy way or the hard way. As a backslider for 12 years, I can testify to the covenant faithfulness of God; He was faithful when I was not.

Journey to the Father

Forgive (Strong's #5375 / #5746). This word means pardoning, remitting, disposed to forgive, inclined to overlook offense, mild, merciful, and compassionate as a forgiving temperament. "And forgive us our debts, as we forgive our debtors" (Matt. 6:12). Someone said to me, "God doesn't forgive intentional sin." Well, I don't know any other kind! We wanted to do it, so we did. How thankful I am that God, as a Father, made provision for all our failures in the person of His Son. God forgives because it is His nature; it is why the redemptive plan was executed in the person of Christ. "God was in Christ reconciling the world to Himself" (2 Cor. 5:19a). Psalm 51 allows us to see three distinctions of failure.

Be gracious to me, O God, according to Your loving-kindness; according to the greatness of Your compassion blot out my transgressions. Wash me thoroughly from my iniquity, and cleanse me from my sin. For I know my transgressions, and my sin is ever before me (Psalm 51:1-3). Sin has degrees of intensity and varying amounts of accountability which elicit different responses from Father God. Note the words: iniquity, transgression, and sin2 and how David deals with each separately in Psalm 51. His iniquity is washed, his transgression is blotted out, and his sin is cleansed.

The first level is iniquity (Strong's #5771 / #458). There are 11 different words translated as "iniquity" in the Old Testament. The New Testament uses "lawless." The most prominent in the Old Testament is awon used some 215 times meaning crooked, that which is not straight, to bend, go astray, or deviation from the right path. The second level is transgression. The word transgression occurs 80 times and its meaning is essentially a rebellious attitude. This is intentionally going beyond known limits, breaking or violating a law, principle, or relationship. It is deciding that the "No Parking" sign is for other people, not for us, so we intentionally go beyond the known limit and park there anyway.

The third level is sin. The Hebrew root of this word means "to miss the mark" or what is more commonly understood as failing, omitting, or refusing to do what we ought to do. All of these result in our inability to reveal God's glory or as Paul stated, "All have sinned and fall short of the glory of God" (Rom. 3:23). Sin is used 430 times in both the Old and New Testaments and includes both Jews and Gentiles. To use the word sin is important because, unlike ignorance or chance, it involves some degree of choice, intention, and culpability. Answers for sin and evil lie outside the sphere of education; we are dealing with moral responsibility which does not resolve itself by more learning. How thankful I am that Father God has made provision for all of these in the person of His Son.

God forgives because it is His nature. This is why the redemptive plan was executed in the person of Christ (see 2 Cor. 5:19). The only part of the Lord's Prayer that Jesus took time and effort to more thoroughly explain was the urgent need for us to understand the

necessity of forgiveness. "For if you forgive others for their transgressions, your heavenly Father will also forgive you. But if you do not forgive others, then your Father will not forgive your transgressions" (Matt. 6:14-15). When we receive forgiveness from the Father but refuse, withhold, or fail to give it to others, we may find ourselves in trouble with the Father. Many of us have serious difficulty forgiving. People do us wrong

and we simply do not want to forgive them, yet we wrong others and then expect them to forgive us. We seriously jeopardize our journey toward intimacy when we refuse to forgive. Our stubbornness causes us to fail to reveal Father's hidden attributes to others and to misrepresent Him to those who are seeking to know Him. This we do much in the same way as Moses striking the rock in anger, misrepresenting the Father whom we serve.

When Israel failed God miserably (see Num. 14), God came on the scene, and though He was slow to anger, He was quite displeased because the Israelites disfigured His glory and contaminated everything He intended the nations to see. Then God swore an oath, "But indeed, as I live, all the earth will be filled with the glory of the Lord" (Num. 14:21). It is inevitable that the hidden attributes of His glory are going to be revealed in the earth. This declaration describes and defines God's inexorable purpose in the earth.

When people are able to see through us a Father who is compassionate, gracious, slow to anger, merciful, truthful, faithful, and forgiving, their lives will change. This is and will be the source of society's renewal. These things are not what Father God does but who He is. When I rediscovered God as a Father, I stopped measuring all fatherhood by an earthly standard.

After experiencing such rejection from my earthly father, I found myself wanting to know how to love and enjoy unlimited access to my heavenly Father. Having an intimate relationship with Father God is what the Agape Road is all about. He made this clear when He instructs us to love Him with all our heart, soul, mind, and strength (see Deut. 6:5; Mark 12:30). God wants our affection. In the following chapters we will discover the reasons for His request.

Jesus, Revealer Of God's Glory

One of the most beautiful, unfolding insights into Christology is Jesus coming as Agape Incarnate for the express purpose of introducing us to the Father (see Appendix for the explanation of the Greek word Agape).

"And the Word became flesh, and dwelt among us, and we beheld His glory, glory as of the only begotten from the Father, full of grace and truth" (John 1:14). Because the incarnation was for the primary purpose of allowing us to see what God was like, when Jesus said, "If you have seen Me, you have seen the Father" (see John 14:9), we know that what Jesus really came to do was reveal His Father to a hurting world. He was "the radiance of His glory and the exact representation of His nature" (Heb. 1:3a).

Understanding the glory leads us to knowing the Father. Paul said in First Corinthians 2:8, "…none of the rulers of this age has understood; for if they had understood it they would not have crucified the Lord of glory." Jesus really is the Lord of the glory (literal Greek translation) and it is His responsibility, along with the Holy Spirit, to teach us. We are learning how to bring honor to God, our Father. The glory consists of the hidden attributes of God being revealed or replicated within His own people. This is the essence of Jesus saying that if we follow Him, He will take us to the Father (see John 14:6). Every hidden attribute of God is revealed in the person and activities of Christ. When we see Jesus, we see God's compassion, grace, mercy, truth, faithfulness, and forgiveness revealed in the earth.

God as a Father is an important concept in Scripture. He was a Father before He was a Creator or a Redeemer. He was the Father of the Lord Jesus Christ in eternity before the world began, so that through Fatherhood we can come to know Him (see John 17:3). Nothing in American society has been more twisted and damaged than the concept of Father. No one in the history of the world has been more misrepresented than God the Father. He is easy to malign, condemn, and speak against because He does not defend Himself. However, in the damaging of the concept of Father, our whole society is bereft of security, identity, and belonging. It is urgent that we see the Fatherhood of God restored. This is what Jesus came to do (see John 14:6).

Throughout Scripture, God's unrelenting goal seems to be to give His glory away. Yet, in the Old Testament He said, "I am the Lord, that is My name; I will not give My glory to another…" (Is. 42:8). I always thought that meant God's glory was unattainable, until one day, in a flash of illumination, the Lord said to me, "You're not another, you are My Body." In John 17:22 Jesus says, "The glory which You have given me I have given to them; that they may be one, just as We are one." We are bone of His bone and flesh of His flesh. He gives us His glory for the purpose of His character being formed in us as His people so that a hurting world can see through us to the Father.

As we come to know this God, the One who revealed Himself, we start feeling comfortable in His presence. We have a wonderful Father! How I wish that when I was young in the faith someone had helped me to more clearly understand that Christ came to take me to His Father. My idea of a father was displays of male testosterone in the futile attempt to acquire, possess, and control. I knew little to none of His character or the hidden attributes of God's nature.

The Name

A child represents his father's name. If my child is causing trouble or doing something good and someone says, "Oh, that's Mumford's son," he is representing my name. When Moses wanted to see God's glory, God's response was that He would "proclaim the name of the Lord before you" (see Ex. 33:18-19). Then the Lord gave Moses a clear self-revelation of His seven DNA attributes. This biblical writer connects God's glory and God's name. The content of His name is God's glory; His name reveals His character.

When we pray in God's name, we are using His authority which He gave His Body to use (see John 1:12; 17:22). God's glory is seen when His hidden attributes are revealed through us. His name is His revealed character—all that He wants us to know of Him. To call upon His name is to worship Him. We need a deep, gut-wrenching reformation that can help us respond to our call to reveal His glory. Remember that God vowed that all the earth would be filled with His glory (see Num. 14:21).

Every time we pray for someone in Jesus' name, we are revealing at least one of His seven character traits. Apart from these seven aspects of God's own character, there is no ministry because Agape must find a way to reach hurting people. God is Agape (see 1 John 4:16), and He is so eager to reach them that He even uses you and me! He gave us His name (His reputation) and His glory in order for us to accomplish this. When we use the authority of His name to pray for people, we are making application of His DNA. This must be done with proper motivation as Paul states in First Corinthians 10:31, "Whether, then, you eat or drink or whatever you do, do all to the glory of God."

When the Lord emphasizes physical healing and deliverance, we can sense love, mercy, and compassion flowing through us to those who are captive, sick, hurt, and injured. We can actually perceive something of the glory, the nature of the Father, reaching out from within us. God's love refuses to remain inactive in the presence of human need. I remember ministering with an evangelist who crushed his shoulder as a result of a

car accident. He was wearing an "airplane cast" with a stabilizing bar to keep his arm and shoulder from moving. As he laid his cast on people, the life of God flowed through him and they were healed. The simple lesson is that our infirmity does not lessen or obstruct the life of God flowing through us. Healing ministries are born when we touch God's compassion and His searching love for a hurting world. He gives us His name so we can do something about it.

God desires that we represent His name and reflect His glory to the world. However, if you finish reading this book with a task list of new things to do in order to reveal God's glory, you will have missed the point. We need simply to learn to love God. Scripture says that "to everyone who has, more shall be given, and he will have an abundance" (Matt. 25:29a), so it is God's initiative. Jesus is both the originator and finisher of our faith (see Heb. 12:2). Eternal life is when we know what the Father is really like, come to trust Him, and begin to respond to His love.

Coming Short Of The Glory

God's goal is that we be formed into the likeness of His Son, reflecting His glory. However, "all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God" (Rom. 3:23). Because the image of God in man has been distorted, people, for the most part, do not look to the Church for answers (see Eph. 3:21). As a result, many are left in confusion and darkness.

"Coming short of the glory" is failing, neglecting, refusing, or perhaps being totally ignorant of the necessity of our seeking to accomplish that for which we were created—to show forth God's glory.

Two dramatic illustrations of coming short of God's glory are Moses and David. Moses, who received the revelation of God's character firsthand, struggled with anger. He was told to speak to the rock (which was a type of Christ) and God would provide water for the Israelites. In anger, Moses, as we know, struck the rock rather than speaking to it.

Because his action distorted the representation of God's glory, he was banned from the Promised Land. King David was also a human representative of God's government. Scripture says that David had a heart after God, yet the ungoverned desires he expressed toward Bathsheba facilitated a series of events, including adultery and murder, which totally distorted the image of God's nature. This cost him his son and a broken relationship of intimacy with God (see Ps. 51:11). Like Moses and David, we too, have fallen woefully short of God's glory. When people look at us as living epistles, they hope to see God through our life, but often, it is obscured or misrepresented.

Summary

We began by understanding the barriers to intimacy and what it means to be welcomed home. God, in a self-sacrificing act of love, sent Jesus to transcend the death line for one purpose—so that we could love God and others as He originally created us to do. God's self-revelation came to us in the person of His Son, Jesus Christ: compassion, grace, slow to anger , mercy, truth, faithful, and forgiving. Father God made full compensation for the fact that we have, indeed, "come short of the glory."

That is, we have failed to reveal God as He wants and intends to be known. In the next chapter, we'll see how deep this problem really goes and how we have been given the preferential choice between two kinds of love.

Endnotes

1. Joseph Mayor, The Epistle of St. James (London: MacMillan and Co., Limited, 1807), 137.

2. International Standard Bible Encyclopedia, Electronic Database 1996 Biblesoft. 33

Chapter 1 Glossary

Agape Road: (ä-gä´pa) Agape is the Greek word for love. The Agape Road is a road of love that God created to bring us to intimacy with Himself. Jesus is the road—the Way, the Truth, and the Life—to the Father (see John 14:6).

Barriers to Intimacy: Three main categories hinder us from having an intimate relationship with the Lord: the satanic or demonic, the original fall, and as a result of the first two, human failure—the mistakes and injuries whose origin and source, for the most part, come from us.

Compassion: (Strong's #7349 / #3628) Greek word splagchnon— splangkh´-non; meaning bowels of compassion or mercy (see Phil. 2:1). The word means suffering with another; painful empathy; a sensation of sorrow excited by the distress or misfortunes of another; pity; commiseration. Compassion is a mixed passion, compounded of love and sorrow; at least some portion of love generally attends the pain or regret, or is excited by it. Extreme distress of an enemy even changes enmity into at least temporary affection. Compassion means my very insides are moved in concern and care toward you in a supernatural way.

Death Line: When Adam and Eve transgressed, it created a separation between God and His creation causing death to come upon all men (see Rom. 5:12). The death line represents the broken relationship between God and His creation and as a result, sin, shame, and guilt came upon all humanity. God, however, transcended the death line by sending us Jesus.

Our path to God is the Holy Spirit, the Scriptures, and Jesus as the Word of God made flesh. These three things are the source of life for those who have been brought over the death line.

Faithfulness: (Strong's #5375 / #5746). The Greek word is hesed meaning fixed, determined love. God, Himself, causes His love to be kept, guarded, watched over, and preserved. Once God gives Himself covenantally, it is impossible for Him to desert or abandon the person or the covenant (see Heb. 13:8). It is firm adherence to truth and duty, true to allegiance, careful to observe all compacts, treaties, contracts, or vows. In other words, true to one's word (see Deut. 7:9; Heb. 13:5).

Forgiving: (Strong's #5375 / #5746). Forgive means pardoning, remitting, inclined to overlook offense, mild, merciful, and compassionate as a forgiving temper (see Matt. 6:12). It is one of God's hidden attributes. Forgiveness is part of His nature.

God's DNA/Nature: God's DNA is His communicable attributes, His nature which are able to be imparted to humans (see Gal. 5:23). He is compassionate, gracious, slow to anger, merciful, truthful, faithful, and forgiving (see Ex. 34:6-7). God also has incommunicable attributes: He is eternal, omnipresent, omniscient, immutable, and self-revealed. When Jesus was on earth, He laid aside the incommunicable attributes, picking them up again after His death and resurrection (see John 17:5).

God's Name: God's reputation (see Ex. 33:18-19). His name is His identity, authority, and revealed character; it is all that He wants us to know about Him. To call upon His name is to worship Him. When we pray for someone in God's name, we are revealing at least one of His seven character traits.

Gracious: (Strong's #2587 / #5485). It means to find favor, be kind, friendly, benevolent, courteous, disposed to show or dispense grace and forgive offenses, and to impart unmerited blessings. Gracious is a substitute for the name of God.

Iniquity: (Strong's #5771 / #458). A biblical term meaning lawlessness, crooked, that which is not straight, to bend, go astray, deviation from the right path. It is the result of the fall of man when ungoverned desire caused Adam and Eve to go their own way (see Gen. 3:6). Iniquity defines the innate and ubiquitous desire that has broken loose from God's restraint, motivating us to go our own way and do our own thing (see Is. 53:6). (See Transgression, Sin.)

Intimacy: Into-me-see. God wants us to know Him (see Heb. 8:11) and He wants to know us (see 1 Cor. 8:3). This is the normal Christian life made possible through Jesus.

Land of Promises : The New Testament fulfillment of the Promised Land. In the Old Testament, all that was type and shadow (see Col. 2:17) is brought to spiritual reality in the person of Christ. Romans 8:1-39 is the most succinct description of the Land of Promises , which speaks of intimacy and usefulness.

Mercy: (Strong's #2617 / #1656). Mercy is mildness, tenderness of heart, which disposes a person to overlook injuries or to treat an offender better than he deserves. There is no word in the English language precisely synonymous with mercy.

Sin: The Hebrew root of sin means "to miss the mark" or failing, omitting, or refusing to do what we ought to do. All of these result in our inability to reveal God's glory. Sin involves some degree of choice, intentions, and culpability (see Rom 3:23). (See Iniquity, Transgression.)

Slow to Anger : (Strong's #639 / #750 / #3115). Longsuffering is God's forbearance or patience and involves not being easily provoked but able to patiently bear injuries or provocation for a long time (see Num. 14:18; Rom 2:4; Jas. 1:19).

Transgression: Intentionally going beyond known limits, breaking or violating a law, principle, or relationship. The word "transgression" occurs 80 times and its meaning is essentially a rebellious attitude (See Iniquity, Sin.)

Truth: (Strong's #571 / #225). Truth is conformity with fact or reality; exact accordance with that which is, has been, or shall be. Truth is a person, the Lord Jesus Christ, who is the Word of God (see Prov. 8:7; John 17:17).