Forgetting the Father’s Love
As our new sermon series God. Father. Love. is beginning, I'm already seeing how tender this subject is to Christians, non-christians, and fridge-believers alike.
The root of this relationship runs deep into the thread of our being, and is even foundational in Western thought and American history. As we know, it's still printed on the American Dollar: In God we Trust.
But how often do we think of His Fatherly love during our day-to-day living?
One season, when I was longing to restore and revive some of the distance that had developed between me and God the Father, He led me to re-read Ephesians chapter one. Now, I don’t know how often I've read and studied this chapter, from youth group, to bible classes, to my own devotional reading...but this time something shifted for me about our Father.
And it all came down to a shift in pronouns.
Join me in reconsidering Ephesians 1:3-14. As a good Evangelical, I'd always read (and assumed) that Jesus was the active player in redemption history. What is the Sunday School answer? Of course, Jesus. So, certainly all the He and His were lines about Jesus...but most of them are not, they're about the Father!
So consider my surprise, when I took the time to notice (actually reading the scripture) and saw in 3D for the first time (or 3T? The Trinity: Father, Son, Holy Spirit). This story of the gospel wasn’t just about Jesus, it was also a powerful pursuit from God's heart--the Father's heart--toward His people.
My child-like Sunday School answer of Jesus hadn't fully matured into an ability to see and connect with the power of God's intentional, active, fatherly love.
Here are just a few highlights from the Father's Heart in Ephesians 1:3-14:
Our Father has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly realms because we are united with Jesus (Eph 1:3).
Our Father chose us in Jesus before time even existed, before the world was founded (Eph 1:4).
Our Father chose to make us blameless (without shame/accepted) and holy (without guilt/forgiven) in His eyes, through the thorough actions of Jesus (Eph 1:4).
Our Father decided in advance to adopt us, to give us the rights in His realm to be His sons and daughter, to be valued, to remain in His home, to have access to all that is Jesus's (Eph 1:5).
Our Father did this out of His kindness and His desire for us--He doesn't need us, He wants us (Eph 1:5).
Our Father has poured out grace on us because we belong to Jesus (Eph 1:5).
Seriously!?! I'm only at verse 5! Is anyone's picture of the Father-love of God shifting yet!?
Even in our Jesus-saturated Evangelical church, we so easily slip into imagining a God who is still condemning us, whose knee-jerk reaction is anger or a God whose throne rests on passive ignorance and neglect....BUT that is just not that God we see in the scriptures!
This is why Reckless Love means so much when we sing:
Before I spoke a word, You were singing over me
You have been so, so good to me
Before I took a breath, You breathed Your life in me
You have been so so kind to me
Oh, the overwhelming, never-ending, reckless love of God
Oh, it chases me down, fights 'til I'm found, leaves the ninety-nine,
And I couldn't earn it, I don't deserve it, still You give yourself away
Oh, the overwhelming, never-ending, reckless love of God.
If we, we Christians who know Jesus personally, stumble over the Father of Jesus, the One who Jesus came to reveal, how much more will our actions and words lead to stumbling for those whom we long to enter this kingdom?
Needless to say, I am so glad Pastor Danny is doing this series, and that He is leading us deeper into the Father's heart.
Lastly: I heard a pastor once say:
If you have trouble with God the Father, then take Jesus's hand and ask Him to lead you closer to the Father.
Let Jesus show you again the Heavenly Father He knows, loves, and with whom He remains in perfect union.
Perhaps, this is that moment for you?
Take a moment to consider Jesus.
Ask Him to lead you once again to Your Father's arms.