Do you see yourself the way God sees you? We're unpacking this important question this Mother's Day, especially for daughters here on today's Bold Steps with Mark Jobe.
When you're secure in who you are, you're able to say, this is who I am. This is the way God made me. And it's not about what do people think about me? Because you've already been established in your worth and your value that's been given to you by your earthly father and by your heavenly father who spoken into your life that you are a daughter of the Most High God.
Welcome to Bold Steps with Mark Jobe. Mark is president of Moody Bible Institute and the senior pastor of New Life Community Church in Chicago. I'm Wayne Shepherd. Yesterday, Mark began exploring how our relationships with our earthly father profoundly shapes our understanding of our Heavenly Father. And for many listening today, this subject touches on some very tender places
in the heart. Whether you experience abandonment, neglect, or even abuse from your father figure, or perhaps you never knew your father at all, these wounds can create significant barriers to fully experiencing God's love. In today's message, Mark addresses these father wounds by showing how healing in this area is essential for embracing who God has called you to be,
and loving others as he's called you to love. If you missed yesterday's program, you can find it on our website at Bold Steps or through the Bold Steps app. Now let's join Mark Jobe as he continues with part two of The Daughter Factor.
I believe that some of you really need to embrace who God has called you to be. To be able to love like God has called you, to love, to be able to impart to your children if you have them, or love your husband if you have one or your kids that you're going to have to deal with this father wound. The Bible tells us in first John chapter three, see what great love the father has lavished on us. That we should be called children of God. And that is what we are. The reason the world does not
know us is that it did not know him. Some of you here have a real hard time connecting with the love of the father, because you've never experienced the genuine, powerful love of your earthly father. So there's a disconnect with with the Heavenly father. And there's a void. There's a vacuum. There's a neutrality there. If you were raised in a whole family with a loving father that nurtured, that spoke into your life, no father is perfect, but that spoke to your worth and spoke to your value,
then you. Unfortunately, it feels like nowadays are the exception. The Bible tells us in John chapter 832 that we will know the truth, and the truth shall set us free. When the Bible says, the love of the father, and you have a disconnect with the love of the father. It means that although you may hear the words God loves you, it rings void a bit. When there's a father vacuum in our life. It means oftentimes I've seen it go into several extremes. When there's a father vacuum.
For some of you, it meant that you so desired the approval of a man that you didn't get from your father, that you threw out all your standards, and you became obsessed with having a man see your value. And you would throw yourself into relationships that were toxic and broken and unhealthy. Why? Because a man showed attention to you and it drove you to. I just want him to affirm me, value me, love me. And people would say, why do you let him let them treat you,
treat you that way. But so driven. Obsessed. Feeling incomplete with the man. Like I can't stand alone unless a man is there beside me. You know what often speaks to is the father vacuum. Amen. Others of you, because of the father vacuum and the hurt that's there, created barriers around yourself, holding people at a distance. No other man is ever going to hurt me like I was hurt. And so you're tough. Exteriorly hold people at a distance
because you say I'll never be hurt again. Others, when you come into the church and you hear the term father and you sing about the father love of God, it's hard for you to look up into the heavens and with the radiance in your face, because you want to look down at your feet and what comes to
your mind is you again, why aren't you? And you come into a place like this and it feels like God is just scanning your sins and pointing them out one by one, and you feel shame and guilt and condemnation and not this incredible, powerful love of the father. That's called the father wound. You know what happens in our life. And we talked about it in the first one. And can I just say this about fathers before I go on? Some of you had fathers that just had
never received, and so they had difficulty giving. I was at a men's encounter retreat like this. And men deal with their issues. We challenge them about loving their sons and daughters and what it means to, in a different way, what it means to love their wives in a in a way that some of them have never known. And
we have them take bold steps at the end. And I'll never forget one father standing up, as we talked about how much the power and love of a father counts, and how it's important, how his daughters are shaped by their relationship with the father and sons and identity. And I'll never forget one father getting up, weeping, weeping, weeping uncontrollably. And he was about to share his bold step. So
what's your bold step? And with the crackling voice and tears streaming down his face, he said, I have three daughters. Under the teenage years. He said they've never heard me say I love them. I've never in their life said, I love you. He said. I do love them, he said, but I was never told by my father. It was like weakness. It was you don't talk about that. And
he said, my bold step crying, weeping. He said, that is to go home and to gather my three little daughters, look them in the eyes, and for the first time in their life they're going to hear their father say, I love you. It reminded me that this man. Had a father vacuum as well. And it's hard to give what we don't have. We talked about how strongholds are built in our life. And oftentimes what happens with these strongholds is that, well, our life is kind of like this.
We're a blank page. And here's what happens to many of our lives as we grow, as we begin to develop. God has established households with a mother or father that love us and speak into our lives to protect us. But what happens in many of our lives is that that protection that God has placed over us. Gets punctured. Abandonment. Divorce. Abuse. Critical spirit. Addictions. And what happens in our life is that the seeds of lies start being now. Seeds of
lies can be easily planted in your life. You're not worth anything. You'll never count. There's something wrong with you. And those lies get planted in us. And those lies then. Well, those lies start to well. Stuff starts to grow. Stuff starts to grow. And let me tell you what happens is that. That those lies grow up and they get entangled around the core of our being. They affect our personality, how we talk, how we walk, who we hang with, who we date, how we marry, how we raise our kids.
Because they've entwined themselves in our being. Lies have become. And for many of us, it's hard to distinguish what is truly me and what is the lie that I'm that I've grown up with. If you've ever been abused at a young age, sexually, verbally, physically there are lies, especially by someone that was supposed to protect you. There lies that were deeply embedded in your being, deeply ingrained in your soul. You've grown up with them, and most women that I talk to have really never dealt with
those issues. And you wake up one day and you realize what's wrong with me. Well, nothing's wrong with you. What's wrong with you is that you have allowed lies to inhibit some of your personality. You've lied. You've allowed lies to. So be entangled and enwrapped in who you are. That they do not let you function like the woman of God that he's called you to be. And here's what the Bible says. The Bible says you shall know the truth, and the truth shall set you free.
You're listening to Bold Steps with Mark Jobe. Mark will be back to continue today's message in a minute. Let me remind you, though, that you can find all of these daily lessons, along with other faith building tools and resources on our website. Bold steps org. In fact, there's one resource that thousands of listeners are enjoying every week that you can get for free. And that's Mark's weekly
email devotional called The Bold Stepper Weekly. Those who have subscribed Mark got it this past Monday morning.
Absolutely nice and early, and we like to say this is a great way to kickstart your week.
And there's devotional thoughts. Ministry updates this past bold step where we talked about the fact that this is a season where many, many young people, high schoolers and college age are coming to Christ, and often our culture has dismissed them as cynical or lazy Z or confused, but I believe there's a lot of hope in this generation as I see them responding to God and awakening to God.
And so I think you'll be encouraged, especially if you have a heart for this generation to listen or to read this past week's Bold stepper.
Yeah. And you can receive this free of charge. And by the way, you have an interesting front row seat to what's going on with this generation. Mark, so glad you talked about that. But you can receive The Bold Stepper Weekly today by signing up at Bold Steps. Org. Look for the devotional tab and then sign up for the Bold Stepper weekly. All right, back to our message, now titled The Daughter Factor. Once again, here's Mark Jobe.
And so it's this the truth of the Word of God that starts ripping away the lives, tearing away the lies that have entangled our view of ourselves, our view of God, our view of others. you see. Romans chapter 12, verse two says, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Ladies, I believe in the power of prayer. I believe that God changes things through prayer. But, but, but listen to me. There are certain things that are only going to be changed through the renewing of your mind.
There's not a magical prayer that's going to heal you. God can set you free from unforgiveness, but your mind takes time to be renewed. Do you understand the difference that you can be set free to go in renewal, but it's a process to turn those wrong thinking into right thinking, to start to embrace that God truly does love you. To start to embrace that there is no condemnation to those that are in Christ Jesus, but that
you are. You are free from guilt or condemnation. There's it takes time to start to realize that there is a powerful love that you've never maybe experienced before that is healing and transformational, and that when you're filled with it, you can give it to others as well. It takes time to embrace the truth of the Word of God. Many women are unable to give love and affection because
they struggle in receiving it from their heavenly father. So this is a fill in the blank, by the way, women, unable to experience the love of the father tend to struggle with a few things. Lack of inner joy. You say, well, pastor Mark, I'm a believer, but I seem like I don't have a lot of joy. Because when you're doing things out of guilt or out of obligation, and not out of the sense of connection and community and relationship with the father, then it becomes drudgery. It becomes, I
have to measure up. I go to church not because I want to be in the presence of the father, but because I feel like, well, that's what I'm supposed to do, and maybe God will punish me if I don't. And so it's a guilt driven, feel empowered, not love driven, grace and powered relationship with our father. Insecurity in relationships when you don't know who you are. Here's the thing about the mother, the the father daughter factor, and the
mother daughter factor. I believe that they both leave vacuums in our life, but I believe that a father helps instill identity and oftentimes a sense of value and worth. Mothers who are more nurturing when there's a lack of a mother's presence, it tends to instill insecurity and a sense of not belonging. Both are equally damaging, and some of you struggle with either one of those. Uh, mother vacuum or a father vacuum. But I think they show up in different ways. When you struggle with the love
of the father, there's a tendency to feel inadequate. Like there's something wrong with me. Why? There's some of you that your father walked out on you when you were five years old. And no matter what you tell a five year old, part of their thinking is, why did he leave me? There's something probably wrong with me. There's something probably inside of me. And your mother may have told you. Baby. It has nothing to do with your dad loves you. It's between mom and dad. No matter
what you tell a five year old. In their mind, they say he left me. He's not around. And maybe he started in another family. So what is wrong with me? There's something really powerful, though, with the presence of a man or a father that speaks into the heart of a daughter and says to her, hey, because the father is the first. Person a little girl ever loves. In fact, up to a certain age, when you ask the little girl, so who are you going to marry? Little girl, say
my daddy. It's the first love of their life. They're learning how they should be treated by a man, by how their father treats them. Listen, some of you have gone to abusive relationships because you learn from your father that it was okay. You saw it in your household with your mother, and you grew up expecting. That's how a woman should be treated. And you didn't understand? No, no,
that's not how a woman should be treated. If you grew up in a household where you were taught respect and and hey, you don't talk to a woman that way. You don't. You raise your hand when you were taught that you have dignity and value, then you know what? When you see toxicity, when you see abuse, when you see someone treat, you walk away from it. Because I'm not going to I'm not going to allow you to treat me that way because you've been taught there's a standard.
That's not how you treat a woman. And so you're able to walk away from broken, toxic, abusive relationships because you have been taught a standard of what that's like. The greatest protection for daughters to not be in abusive relationships and to be able to stand up for it, is a loving father that speaks dignity, value and worth into the heart of their daughters. I used to tell my daughter when I dropped her off in high school. She.
Pretty girl, pretty cheerleader, pretty girl. Everybody was talking. Hey, your daughter's so cute. She's so pretty. And I and she was. And she is. But I would always tell her, I said, you know. Hey, Marissa, look at me. She says, I know, I know, I'm more than a pretty face. Because I would tell her that you're more than a pretty face. You got intelligent, you got a personality, you got brains. You got there's much more than just a
pretty face. You're much more than that. At. And I believe that when we do not fully grasp when we have a father vacuum, there's a tendency to feel inadequate, inability to express love to others freely and unexplained feelings. Here you go of rejection. Unexplained. Why do I feel when I walk into a room like the first thing that comes to my mind? Do people like me? Do I fit in? Am I dressed right? Do I talk right? Are people going to look? Some of you coming to
this conference that's been your biggest issue. You walk in a room like this and you think, am I dressed right? Do people like me? Am I going to say the right words? Do I fit in? When you're secure in who you are, you're not asking those questions as much. You're able to say, this is who I am, and I know who I am, and I love who I am. This is the way God made me. And it's not
about what do people think about me? Because you've already been established in your worth and your value that's been given to you by your earthly father and by your heavenly father who's spoken into your life, that you are a daughter of the Most High God. Ephesians chapter three. The Apostle Paul is telling to believers, and he he's talking to people that are struggling with understanding who they
are in God. And he says, and I pray that you, being rooted and established in love may have the power. The Greek word is dunamis, which where we get the word dynamite from. That's explosive power together with all the believers to grasp how wide, how long, how high, how deep is the love of Christ? And to know this love that surpasses knowledge, that you may be filled to the fullness of the measure of God. You know what he's saying? He's saying, I want you to experience not
just head knowledge about the love of God. I wanted to so saturate you that you can't explain it, but you know you're walking in it.
You're listening to Bold Steps with Mark Jobe, the middle of a lesson titled The Daughter Factor. If you've missed any part of this message so far, let me invite you to catch up right now when you visit. Bold steps.org. As a listener supported ministry, Bold Steps relies on the voluntary donations of friends like you who share our vision. And right now, you can give a one time gift or sign up to become a bold partner. When you commit to giving a monthly donation of any amount for
either opportunity. Just click the donate button at our website at Bold Steps. Or call us at 800. That's (800) 356-6639. Well, Mark, we are very excited about our bold step gift. This month is called Lies Girls Believe and the truth that Sets them Free. Now the author, Dannah Gresh is with us. And Dana, I want to commend you because not only is this book so full of wisdom, biblical wisdom and insight,
but you've organized it in such a fun way. I would imagine young girls look at this and think, I want to pick this up and read this.
I hope so, you thrill my heart saying that. That makes. Thank you. Because years ago I was a cheerleader in a Christian high school, and my cheerleading coach did a Devo with me on the Bible verse. I don't know the reference, but it says whatever your hand finds to do, do it with all your might. And if you're listening and you've done demos with teenagers listens, they stick with you for years, for decades. That that Devo has stuck with me and I've always wanted to do anything I do.
I wanted to give Jesus my best. So when we wrote lies, Girls Believe, I went to the bookstore, the secular bookstore, and I looked at the bookshelves and I said, what are the best books here that are being sold to these tween girls? And I picked up books with cartoons, and I picked up books with graphics and art and just thrilling, fun books. And I was like, lies girls believe is gonna look like that. And I think it does. I really think it does. I think it's absolutely beautiful.
So thank you for saying that. I think it matters and it draws them through the content. It keeps them engaged in the content and it makes it a really fun experience for them.
Well, it's so creative the way that you've done it here, Mark. I just think it's it's going to really have hit the mark with these young girls.
Absolutely. I'm holding a copy in my hand scrolling through the pages. And there is great compelling artwork, creative, colorful, uh, design specifically for 8 to 12 year olds. But more important even than the art. Is the message so important.
So if you're a mother that's struggling with how to reach the heart of your 8 to 12 year old, or how to help them navigate some of the peer pressure that they're experiencing at school, or if they're asking spiritual questions or asking questions about sex, identity, who they are. This is not a topic or time that you can ignore. You need to jump in that and disciple your daughters. So this tool is specifically designed for that. Thank you Dana.
My pleasure. Thank you so much.
To request your copy of Lies Girls Believe, just give a gift of any amount to support bold steps by going online to Bold Steps. Org or call us today at 800 Moody. You can even send your check in the mail. Just address your envelope to bold steps. 820 North LaSalle Boulevard, Chicago, Illinois 60,006 ten again. 820 North LaSalle, Chicago, Illinois 606 ten. And quickly, before we close, I want to invite you to download our Bold Steps app, available
in your app store. We have a variety of inspiring videos and insightful teaching series available for you, so make sure to download the Bold Steps app and check it out today. And don't miss the Bold Steps Weekend program this Saturday and Sunday. Get ready for more inspirational teaching from Mark that will keep you energized and encouraged all weekend long. It's a perfect way to stay focused on God and fill your weekend with powerful insights. Tune in
and let Mark's messages carry you through to the week ahead. Well, that's all our time for today. I'm Wayne Shepherd and we will see you next week with the conclusion of Mark's message. The Daughter Factor that will be coming up Monday right here on Bold Steps with Mark John. Bold steps is a production of Moody Radio, a ministry of Moody Bible Institute.