Some of the most notorious serial killers of our time have something in common, beside their thirst for blood: They were all adopted. David Berkowitz (a.k.a. Son of Sam), Ted Bundy, Aileen Wuornos, Joel Rifkin and the Boston Strangler are just a handful of the prominent serial murderers who also happen to be orphaned by their parents for one reason or another.
Why is this series important? Because if the enemy can cause a breakdown in child-parent relationships, he strikes at the core of God’s desire for us as individuals and as a people. He first brings division, then comes death.
Why do we have daddy issues? It is due to dysfunction in the parent-child relationship - many times during the formational years. This dysfunction can happen on the part of the parent, the child, or both. It can take the form of trauma, absenteeism, rejection or rebellion.
This can, and often times does, open a door for an orphan spirit.
An orphan in the natural means to not have parents. An orphan spirit, however, can come in when there is sin, abuse, neglect. You can live in a home with two parents and still be a spiritual orphan because of a felt lack of godly parenting. The indifference, neglect, or abuse can be real or merely perceived. The enemy specializes in causing individuals to interpret the actions of others as a personal attack, even when it is not. An orphan spirit can also come in through the rebellion of the child and the rejection of the parents authority.
It is a mindset that develops from the influence of sin during development so that the individual’s growth and maturity are greatly hindered, and do not fully form or function as God intends. It fosters a fear, suspicion, anger towards, or even hatred for authority. It causes the individual to not feel as if they belong, and even prevents them from being able to form deep and healthy connections with others. It causes parents to selfishly separate from or push away their children. It causes children to reject and hate their parents, and any form of authority as a whole. This causes individuals to seek validation, comfort, and community outside of what God desires. People become isolated and or codependent. They turn to abusive or manipulative relationships in search of love. They turn to gangs for community. They turn to drugs, alcohol, sex, food, work, exercise, and excess – anything to fill the void – a void that can only be filled by God and by healthy parent-child relationships.
This orphan spirit, then, tends to transfer from one generation to the next.
John 10:10 The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy…
God’s solution to break the generational curse is found in Malachi 4
Malachi 4:5-6 Behold, I will send you Elijah the prophet before the coming of the great and dreadful day of the LORD. And he will turn the hearts of the fathers to the children, and the hearts of the children to their fathers, lest I come and strike the earth with a curse.”
Malachi 4:4 Remember the Law of Moses…
Exodus 20:3-6 “You shall have no other gods before Me… For I, the LORD your God, am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children to the third and fourth generations of those who hate Me, but showing mercy to thousands, to those who love Me and keep My commandments.”
This spirit requires the Lord to visit the third and fourth generation, to give an opportunity to break the self-destructive, and self-replicating cycle.
As I stated earlier, the rejection can come from the child toward the parent.
Adam rejected God as Father and rebelled against His authority, even though Adam was in a perfect environment with a perfect father. Death and separation were the result. One of Adam’s children ended up murdering the other. The cycle of death and brokenness has been transferred through the generations and is still going on today.
The rejection can also happen as the parents reject, neglect, abuse, or ignore their children in various ways.
David failed as a father in many ways. His sons were not orphans but we still see this orphan spirit moving in their lives. One of his sons raped their sister and David did nothing about it. This brought about hatred, murder, and his son Absalom even staged a coup to overthrow David’s kingdom. David’s selfishness resulted in some pretty messed up kids that almost cost him his life and kingdom. His legacy was that his grandson, Rehoboam, would later spark a civil war that divided the nation of Israel.
When parents are selfish, or absent for any reason (like death or even deployment), it can create a wound and a void in the soul of the child.
Genesis 21:14 So Abraham rose early in the morning, and took bread and a skin of water; and putting it on her shoulder, he gave it and the boy to Hagar, and sent her away.
Ismael was sent away by his father when he was 14 years old. Abraham was 86 when Ishmael was born, and 100 when Isaac was born.
Ismael was a product of Abraham and Sarah trying to fulfill God’s word in their own strength. Being sent away wounded him greatly. He needed his father in this critical time of adolescence. His wound allowed a spirit of rejection enter his life, as well as an orphan spirit.
His descendants became the Arabian Muslim nations that are still in contention with Israel to this day. The tension in the Middle-East is not political, economic, or even religious – It is a orphan spirit, a spirit of rejection that has been passed down from generation to generation. It roots go deep and it has grown bolder and stronger into a principality. It is the son that was rejected that violently kicks against the son who has the father’s blessing.
Many of us are walking around with an orphan spirit or a spirit of rejection. Either because of what our parents or spiritual authority did or didn’t do, or because of how we chose to interpret or respond to them or even God. Paul writes what it looks like when this spirit runs rampant through culture.
2 Timothy:1-5 But know this, that in the last days perilous times will come: For people will be lovers of themselves, lovers of money, boasters, proud, blasphemers, disobedient to parents, unthankful, unholy, unloving, unforgiving, slanderers, without self-control, brutal, despisers of good, traitors, headstrong, haughty, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God, having a form of godliness but denying its power.
All of these selfish, religious, and self-destructive behaviors can be directly linked to daddy issues.
Matthew 7:21-23 “Not everyone who says to Me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ shall enter the kingdom of heaven, but he who does the will of My Father in heaven. Many will say to Me in that day, ‘Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied in Your name, cast out demons in Your name, and done many wonders in Your name?’ And then I will declare to them, ‘I never knew you; depart from Me, you who practice lawlessness!’
Again, an orphan spirit can come in through rejection. Whether by the parent or the child. Mentor or mentee. Spiritual leader or follower. We are proud and rebellious by nature without any help or disfunction from anyone else. You couple that with trauma and rejection somewhere in the parent-child dynamic, this orphan spirit can become a stronghold.
Orphan Spirit vs Sons & Daughters:
John 10:10 The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy; I have come that they may have life, and have it to the full.
“I will never leave you nor forsake you” (6 times in OT)
John 14:16-18 I will pray the Father, and He will give you another Helper, that He may abide with you forever— the Spirit of truth… you know Him, for He dwells with you and will be in you. I will not leave you orphans; I will come to you.
Malachi 4:5-6 Behold, I will send you Elijah the prophet (John the Baptist, filled with the Spirit from the womb) before the coming of the great and dreadful day of the LORD. And he will turn the hearts of the fathers to the children, and the hearts of the children to their fathers, lest I come and strike the earth with a curse.”
John 17:21 [I pray] that they all may be one, as You, Father, are in Me, and I in You; that they also may be one in Us, that the world may believe that You sent Me.
The Son is in the Father, God sends His Spirit so that we can be sons and daughters of God and fathers and mothers in God.
God hates rejection and the mistreatment His children.
Exodus 22:22-24 “You shall not afflict any widow or fatherless child. If you afflict them in any way, and they cry at all to Me, I will surely hear their cry; and My wrath will become hot, and I will kill you with the sword; your wives shall be widows, and your children fatherless.
Many times in the Law
Malachi 3:5 I will come near you for judgment; I will be a swift witness… Against those who exploit wage earners and widows and orphans,
Matthew 18:6 Whoever causes one of these little ones who believe in Me to sin, it would be better for him if a millstone were hung around his neck, and he were drowned in the depth of the sea.
James 1:27 Pure and undefiled religion before God and the Father is this: to visit orphans and widows in their trouble, and to keep oneself unspotted from the world.
So if God hates rejection and the orphan spirit, why did God allow Ishmael to be rejected? Ishmael was born out of rebellion against God. Gos was separating for Himself a people that would bring about Messiah. Isaac was the son of the promise, Ishmael was the son of the flesh.
Galatians 4:22-31 For it is written that Abraham had two sons: the one by a bondwoman, the other by a freewoman… But he who was of the bondwoman was born according to the flesh, and he of the freewoman through promise, which things are symbolic… Nevertheless, what does the Scripture say? “Cast out the bondwoman and her son, for the son of the bondwoman shall not be heir with the son of the freewoman.” So then, brethren, we are not children of the bondwoman but of the free.
An orphan spirit wants to enslave, to destroy, and to contaminate legacy. God comes to bring life, hope, and inheritance.
John 10:10 The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy; I have come that they may have life, and have it to the full.
How do we overcome an orphan Spirit? The Spirit of Adoption.
Romans 8:14-17 For as many as are led by the Spirit of God, these are sons of God. For you did not receive the spirit of bondage again to fear, but you received the Spirit of adoption by whom we cry out, “Abba, Father.” The Spirit Himself bears witness with our spirit that we are children of God, and if children, then heirs—heirs of God and joint heirs with Christ, if indeed we suffer with Him, that we may also be glorified together.
Galatians 4:3-7 When we were children, were in bondage under the elements of the world. But when the fullness of the time had come, God sent forth His Son, born of a woman, born under the law, to redeem those who were under the law, that we might receive the adoption as sons. And because you are sons, God has sent forth the Spirit of His Son into your hearts, crying out, “Abba, Father!” Therefore, you are no longer a slave but a son, and if a son, then an heir of God through Christ.
Malachi 4 is our theme scripture. It talks about the Elijah spirit.
What is the Elijah Spirit?
Prophetic, confronts sin, speaks to authority, engages in intercession… yes!
But it is primarily the Holy Spirit of Father God and His Son Jesus.
It is the Spirit of Adoption by which we cry our “Abba, Father!”
Orphans look to others to make their own dreams come true.
Sons and daughters seeks to fulfill the dreams for the parents.
John 6:37-38 All that the Father gives Me will come to Me, and the one who comes to Me I will by no means cast out. For I have come down from heaven, not to do My own will, but the will of Him who sent Me.
John 5:19 “Most assuredly, I say to you, the Son can do nothing of Himself, but what He sees the Father do; for whatever He does, the Son also does in like manner.
Jesus, as the Son, did not come to serve His own dream. He had a vision for His life, and that was to fulfill the dream of His Father. The Holy Spirit helped Him and empowered Him to do this. This was prophesied long before Jesus came on to the scene.
Joel 2:28-29 “And it shall come to pass afterward that I will pour out My Spirit on all flesh; your sons and your daughters shall prophesy, your old men shall dream dreams, your young men shall see visions. And also on My menservants and on My maidservants I will pour out My Spirit in those days.
The Holy Spirit was not given only for power and prophecy. He was given so we could have a vision to see that our Heavenly Father’s will got accomplished, as well as the authority that we are placed under. Jesus did the will of Father God, and father Joseph and mother Mary.
God in Heaven is Father, Jesus is the Son – He reveals Himself in family terms. When He spoke of sending the Holy Spirit, He also spoke in terms of a gift from the Father to His children.
Luke 11:9-13 So I say to you, ask, and it will be given to you; seek, and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you. For everyone who asks receives, and he who seeks finds, and to him who knocks it will be opened. If a son asks for bread from any father among you, will he give him a stone? Or if he asks for a fish, will he give him a serpent instead of a fish? Or if he asks for an egg, will he offer him a scorpion? If you then, being evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to those who ask Him!”
God gives us His Spirit so we can get a vision of how to accomplish dream of our natural / spiritual fathers and mothers (as they align with God’s). He then grows us up to become mothers and fathers and His Spirit starts giving us God-dreams of our own that He will call us to raise sons and daughters to help accomplish them. He will fill them so they can get a vision and see how. And the spiritual reproductive cycle continues.
Luke 16:12 And if you have not been faithful in what is another man’s, who will give you what is your own?
How to break and orphan spirit:
• Repent our sin, selfishness, and offense, letting go of the wrongful case against God
• Forgive: parents, ourselves, and
• Ask God for healing
• Adopt God back as Father
• Become a spiritual son / daughter
• Submit to legitimate natural and spiritual authority
• Ask the Holy Spirit to fill you and give you vision on how to accomplish the dream of your parents, pastors, teachers, or supervisors.
• Engage and execute – put feet to your faith and move forward, trusting God for your process.
irst “Orphaned” Spirit
Scripture shows us that Lucifer was a special angel in charge of worship in heaven.
Pride in developed in Lucifer’s heart and he wanted to take God’s position.
So, Lucifer is banished from heaven.
Lucifer (who is now called Satan) leaves God’s presence.
Lucifer rejected God. He rejected love. He rejected Father.
SO, Lucifer becomes the first orphan. An orphaned spirit.
Sonship
Now we move forward in time to creation.
God made the first man Adam in His own image and put His own breath (life) in him.
Adam was born into sonship in relationship with His Father.
Adam was a son and lived as a son. There was no orphanness.
Revenge
We know from Genesis chapter 3 that Satan take out His revenge against God by attempting to destroy those made in the image of God.
Reading between the lines we can imagine that Satan wants God’s children to become orphans just as he was.
Orphan Spirit in Man
As Adam and Eve were tempted, they began to have their own orphan experience.
No longer were they living fully in the loving fathering presence of God as sons and daughters.
The orphan spirit had entered the world.
Orphan World
Every person born after Adam and Eve would now also have this capacity for orphan-ness. To live apart from the fathering of God.
Eventually the earth would become an orphan world with many people living apart from a relationship with God.
What is the orphan spirit?
Let’s get down to the nitty gritty of what an orphan spirit is (and what it is not).
Teresa Liebscher says:
The orphan spirit embodies the mindset of a son or daughter separated from his or her loving Father. Out of this sense of abandonment, lies, sin, and selfish acts flourish to medicate the loss of identity, provision, and protection.
The orphan spirit is mindset or a disposition that effects the spirit, soul (mind, will & emotions) of people.
It is a distortion of the image of God in people.
It is a way of thinking, feeling and then acting and living that is more like an orphan than a loved son or daughter.
It is a way to describe behaviours that come from unhealed inner motivations and drives.
Do not conform to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God’s will is—his good, pleasing and perfect will.
Orphan mindsets are the “pattern of this world”, not of God’s world.
The orphan spirit is not a specific demonic spirit. Although continually living with an orphan mindset can lead to actions that may open the door to the demonic.
How does it work?
The “orphan spirit” something we can “grow into” in an orphan world through negative life experiences.
We begin to hear an internal voice: “I’m not good enough, I need to work harder, I don’t belong …”
Over time we can develop a stronghold in this area that exerts control over our life.
This often takes the form of believing and then living from these lies rather than God’s truth.
Lies are designed to keep people in fear, isolation, lack, condemnation, competition etc.
They may be successful life strategies to some degree, but are far below the abundant life God has for people.
Example: If I don’t push everyone down around me I will never succeed.
Orphan Attitudes & Behaviors
Luke 6:44-45 …
Every tree will be revealed by the quality of fruit that it produces. Figs or grapes will never be picked off thorn trees. People are known in this same way. Out of the virtue stored in their hearts, good and upright people will produce good fruit. But out of the evil hidden in their hearts, evil ones will produce what is evil. For the overflow of what has been stored in your heart will be seen by your fruit and will be heard in your words.
Jesus said that want is in the heart will come out and be seen by people.
It is like this with the orphan spirit. What is internal become external.
Where there is certain kind of fruit it is associated with a certain root.
Here are some orphan mindsets (lies) :
- I don’t belong
- I need to work hard to be accepted
- I am unworthy
- I am not loved
- I need to fight to succeed
- Peopel never like me
- Everyone is against me
Orphan mindsets show themselves as orphan-like behaviours.
- Jealousy
- Anger
- Fear
- Isolation
- Competition
- Over protectiveness
- Bullying
- Self-hate
- Dependence on substances
These are some of the fingerprints or the fruit of the orphan spirit.
It is important to identify the root (orphan mindset) and not just focus on the fruit (orphan behaviour).
The orphan mindset can be seen from the perspective of disempowering and empowering mindsets and behaviors.
Disempowered Orphan Mindset
People act like victims.
Examples: rejection, self-hate, isolation, unworthiness, suicide etc.
Empowered Orphan Mindset
People act like bullies.
Empowered orphan mindsets can look like power or success, but can be harder to identify as orphan mindsets.
Examples: performance, dominating others, independence, control, aggressiveness.
What are orphans like?
Here are some characteristics of orphans that are also foundations of an orphan spirit.
Orphans know about love but have little personal experience of real love.
Orphans think like a slave or a servant.
Orphans never really belong.
Orphans live as if that everyone is against them.
Orphans live life by following rules to avoid punishment
Orphans have no family identity
Orphans fight for position and power in life
Orphans seek comfort in things that are often harmful to them
Jesus & the Father’s Promise
John 14:18
“I will not leave you as orphans I will come to you.”
When Jesus said these words to was also Father God speaking.
He was saying. I will not leave you in this world like orphans. I will come to you.
The only way to stop being LIKE an orphan is to:
Be INTRODUCED to a true Father – to a perfect, loving heavenly Father.
AND to be TRANSFORMED into a son or daughter by the Father by living in His blessing.
Only has a person has a relational connection with God can orphan mindsets be properly identified, replaced with truth, wounds healed and people made whole.
The Journey
There are aspects of orphan mindsets still operating in all of us from time to time.
The good news is that we don’t need to be perfect to minister to others. We do need to be on honest and open before God and to stay on the journey to wholeness.
The more orphan mindsets are displaced in our lives with what God has for us, the greater will be our testimony and expectation that God will do this again and again for us and for others.
Freedom from Orphan Mindsets
When we do an activation at the end of this session I’ll share some keys to use to bring freedom from orphan mindsets in a SOZO context.
Now let’s look at the Father’s Blessing
FATHERS BLESSING
Big Picture
Ephesians 1:4-5
For he chose us in him before the creation of the world to be holy and blameless in his sight. In love he predestined us for adoption to sonship through Jesus Christ, in accordance with his pleasure and will— to the praise of his glorious grace, which he has freely given us in the One he loves.
God is a good Father. He wants to bless people. He especially blesses His children who are in relationship with Him
The Father’s intention is to have sons (and daughters) and for them to grow in relationship with Him.
He designed the world as a place where sons & daughters can be reconciled to Him, restored and grow into maturity.
In relationship with God is the only place where the orphan spirit is displaced and replaced.
Seven Needs
There are seven key things that every person needs. We see this especially children in the type of home they need to grow into healthy people.
These needs are primarily supplied through the blessing of a father.
- Peace
- Identity
- Security
- Affirmation
- Protection
- Destiny
- Comfort
These needs are primarily supplied through the blessing of a father.
Father’s Blessing
Mark 1:11
And a voice came from heaven: “You are my Son, whom I love; with you I am well pleased.”
In this passage we see the Father’s blessing spoken over His son Jesus.
Obviously Jesus didn’t need to be freed from orphan mindsets, but He still needed the Fathers blessing.
People need know and experience the Father’s blessing to be truly free from orphan mindset and also to become whole and mature sons and daughters.
Orphan mindsets OUT Fathers blessing (and all this contains) IN.
Lack of Parents Blessing
Life experiences have played a huge role in our capacity to receive and live in the Father God’s blessing.
Lack of our earthly Father’s blessing and bad father experiences can cause us to see God wrongly (e.g. as a father who is angry, judges, is distant etc.)
We need to seeing the Father as He really is (not based at all on the orphan voice).
Our Goal
Our goal is to connect people to the Father’s love and blessing for them.
To help them hear what God is saying who He is for them and how he seems them and their situations.
What are sons and daughters like?
Here are some of the characteristics of sons and daughters who are experiencing the Father’s blessing.
Sons and daughters live in the daily experience of the love and affirmation.
Sons and daughters know the pleasure of their Father no matter how hard they work.
Sons and daughters are at home wherever they are. They belong.
Sons and daughters know that their Father knows them and loves them completely even when the world is against them.
Sons and daughters live by faith – completely trusting their Heavenly Father for provision, protection, affirmation and identity.
Sons and daughters are accepted as a part of the family and find their identity in their relationship with their Father.
Sons and daughters simply receive their inheritance from their Father with no need to struggle against others.
Sons and daughters get comfort that lasts from their loving Father.
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