SID: Hello, Sid Roth, your investigative reporter here with Leif Hetland. Two years ago Leif who walked in the miraculous, who was a pastor, who traveled the world, who was gaining quite a reputation had an encounter with God which revolutionized his life. He realized he had a deficit in Father Love. Every one of us has a deficit in Father Love, some more, some less. But what exactly happened to you two years ago, Leif?
LEIF: Well, let me first of al say that I was teaching about God’s love. I was sharing testimonies about God’s love. I thought I was motivated out of love. I had all the right theology. I knew that the Bible was saying god is love and whoever abides in love abides in God. So I had the right belief system. But those inches from your head to your heart where suddenly you have an experience is very different.
SID: It’s one thing to teach something, it’s another thing to live it.
LEIF: Definitely. And I do believe you teach what you know but you reproduce what you are. And somehow I didn’t realize I was not a lover. Many other people would think so because of what I was teaching, because of what they thought they were seeing. But if you came to my home and talked to my wife and my kids you would see that ministry was my mistress. Or you would see many other things that often were higher in regard than intimacy and relationship with Father God. So in the middle of, after trying everything I could to be a good father, a good husband, being a good president of an organization in twenty-two countries, a good businessman, and all these different things on my plate, I felt like a failure. And I was going down to a conference, actually not a conference, it was a father and son meeting, I thought I was a son, but actually now looking back, I was a servant, I was a slave, to religion, to Christianity, to a system that was created. But when I came down there I realized actually as somebody was praying for me and they prayed a prayer that says, “I ask you Holy Spirit to come and take away anything in life, in Leif’s life, that is not comfortable with love. And the next thing I remember I was laying there like a little child and I was taken back to the nine-year-old boy that my father who was a wonderful businessman took away from our home and my security, moved us to another city, and the fear that I felt within me, some of the bitterness, some of the hurt. Now it was no longer the preacher, the president, there was that nine-year-old boy laying there just weeping, weeping. And then suddenly God just took His arms around me. And He started; I could just feel like it was liquid of love that flowed over me. And there was a wonderful musician that is well known all over America, his name is Dennis Jernigan. And at Jack Taylor’s little meeting, Dennis Jernigan came over, he laid his hands, and he sang a song that is famous, a Papa song, a
Daddy song, how much I was loved. And it was just like liquid after liquid that just flowed all through my system. When I came up from this place and I came home, my wife and my children they said, “What has happened to you?” And for the next couple of months, and I start to feel it again all I could do was to cry, because I realized again and again, how I had violated love. I had done all of these different things for God. I had lived for God but not from God and that was very, very different. So that was an encounter, an experience that changed my life, my walk. Actually it was about three years ago now that I just celebrated this wonderful experience. And my wife said, “You had a baptism of Spirit experience, power experience. You remember, Leif, when signs and wonders and miracles,” but she said, “that baptism of love experience has changed you much more than anything else that I have ever seen in your life.”
SID: You know there are outpourings of God’s spirit the last few years around the world and people have run to these meetings. And they have had genuine encounters with the Holy Spirit but they haven’t changed. They leave the place and a week later it is like they sprung a leak. Question: Have you sprung a leak since this baptism of love?
LEIF: Oh definitely, definitely. And I have continued again and again to sometimes, I’m saying, running to conferences, being prayed for, experiencing again and again that I need more of it. Yes, I recognize that this orphan spirit that I had beforehand, is coming back again and again. But the thing that I seeing as time goes along, that it is taking me shorter time now to get back into my Father’s lap, just being a little boy. And there is a freedom of just being a little boy that just has a big dad. So when I’m looking at the finances, or I’m looking at my marriage, my wife, children, or I am looking at a world wide ministry, when you have a big Dad, you’ve got small problems; you got big problems, you’ve got a little Dad. So it takes me a shorter time now to get back into intimacy where I recognize how big, big Dad I have, how wonderful my heavenly Father is, that the God who created the universe, he is my daddy, and He loves me, and He says, “You are my beloved son, Leif and I love you and I am well pleased with you,” without me doing anything. And out of that intimacy then I can go to the nations. Or I can go like last week to that American Christian Psychiatrist Association. Without that, I would go and I would try to perform something. Now I am just there to represent Him.
SID: What results did you have after you spoke to these psychiatrists?
LEIF: It was just a very interesting experience, because to be honest with you I am used to speak to large gathering of people where you are getting a lot of emotional response; that has maybe applause. But these people were maybe more quiet, from a scientific community. They are all medical doctors, they are all scholars. Some of them were professors in psychiatry at some of our most famous institutions. But in the end, I was finished speaking at 11:00, and I talked about this Father Hunger as one of the root issues in America; and how we try to treat symptoms when there is a root issue that is underneath. That the government and science themselves call Father Hunger and how Jesus Christ himself came actually with the ultimate cure. And I actually did an illustration that kind of shocked them. I gave a little shock treatment. And one of the things I said was, in psychiatry, or as a medical doctor, or even as a Christian you all got an “F”, I have your report card. But actually I can tell you there was a psychiatrist, and there was a doctor, and there was also a wonderful Christian, his name is Jesus. He got an straight “A”. He exchanged the report card with you. So if you look on the report card and see what is true of Him that is now true of you? Then you are qualified to be able to look at the patients with different eyes, not seeing the problem, but to see the promise. And about nine people were just sitting there weeping as we were praying, and even their God was giving words of knowledge into some of these medical doctors life.
SID: Leif, hold that thought. You know it all started with Leif with a question. Ask God honestly, “God, where am I uncomfortable with love?” He’ll answer that. We’ll be back right after this word. Don’t go away.
