Experiencing the love of god as our father
The whole world is searching for a daddy – so said an experienced Xian counsellor I once heard. Very many observers are now concluding that at the heart of
I am not a counsellor, psychologist, social critic but a preacher of the gospel. But I can say without hesitation that the foundation of the Christian life is a heart knowledge of the love of God as your Father – this experiential knowledge breathes life into your whole being – spirit, mind, emotions and relationships.
I was created by God but I did not start life as a child of God in the sense of which I speak today. I became a child of God when I received Jesus ( John
Now I could begin to learn how to live as his child and in the power of his love. When we receive Christ, all changes but all is not yet done. The transformation has only begun; and it has many obstacles to overcome from the past . Children are born not knowing who they are. When we are born as a child of God, we carry with us wrong ideas of who we are – we have much to unlearn and discard as well as to learn and embrace. So what kind of love is the Father’s love for me as his child? What is my relationship with God like?
1. Authority – yes God is in complete authority over me. He is in charge of my life. But I am ruled over with perfect wisdom, with justice and indeed above all with grace and mercy. He will never cause me a needless tear or do me any harm.
2. Faithfulness – he will keep his promises to me and never let me down. He is for me, totally on my side and will not change his mind about me. Nothing can remove me from his love. In his behaviour towards me he is perfectly consistent since he is the unchangeable God. He is a rock to me, not shifting sand or unpredictable like an exploding volcano.
3. Generosity – he brings only good to me, even it is sometimes via the path of suffering – and will eventually give me all the blessings for which Christ died. No good thing will he withhold from them that love him. If I ask for bread will he give me a stone. Jesus said your Father knows how to give good gifts to them that ask him. God wants to do me good.
4. Affection – God likes me. As we saw in the Song of Solomon there are many ways in which we can bring him pleasure and enjoyment. He is not constantly displeased with us even though he knows we have a long way to go on the road to becoming like our elder brother, Jesus.
5. Presence – God is always with me. His eye is always upon me and his ear is always open to my cry. I have his whole attention at all times. He is never too busy.
6. Communication – I have his Word and as I read it and spend time in prayer and public worship he brings home to my heart words which I need to hear and which light up my personal pathway through life. He is speaking to me.
7. Fellowship – God enjoys my presence and worship; he wants to be intimate and get close to me by speaking to me of his love, by inviting me to join with him in the family business of redeeming the world, and by comforting and reassuring me when I am facing adversity.
8. Protection – God looks after me in the face of many dangers seen and unseen. My life may be long or short but it is in his hands and my spiritual enemies cannot triumph over me with him on my side. This makes me feel very secure.
9. Instruction – Training – the Greek word ‘paideia’ is used often in the NT and has a wide range of meaning – bring up, instruct, train, educate; correct, guide, discipline, punish. It is used of God in Hebrews 12:4-12 – do not make light of the Lord’s discipline So God may seem severe to me at times but it is because he has given his children a high calling – he is bringing me up to be like Jesus and to take on the family likeness of holiness.
10. Assurance – my status as a child of God never changes but my inner confidence and assurance of this, my heart experience of his presence and love, are very changeable indeed and depend on many things. God may assure me through his Word, but there is something more than this – it is spoken of in Romans 8 – the inward witness of the Spirit, God’s Spirit witnessing with my spirit, ie speaking in harmony with my spirit, telling me I am his. This can be anything from a kind of spiritual manifestation of joy and peace to really powerful, even overwhelming inward revelations of his love, experiences that may go far beyond the power of words to describe.
Adding all this together gives me a relationship big and strong enough to empower me to cope with everything life can throw at me but it will be tested. That is how my faith grows. We do not live perfectly in the knowledge of God as our Father; if we did we would be perfectly like Jesus himself.
So what is the key – it is knowledge plus faith. When I know what this relationship means and I rest upon it as true, I will live as if it were true.
This is what we can enter into and enjoy if we will receive Jesus as our Saviour and then walk steadily with the Lord. God through Christ is ‘abba’ – my very own, dear Father. We do not need to live as orphans and slaves but most of us do to some degree or another. Why is this? What are the barriers to this experience.
Well, barriers of different kinds exist.
Ignorance – a lack of knowledge of what God says in Scripture about his loving Fatherhood of his children.
Unbelief – inability to see, accept or rest upon these truths.
Drifting away from the Lord through not seeking him
Emotional/relational barriers.
Childhood trauma – Our childhood is the foundation of who we are. All past data is stored somewhere in our sub-conscious. We now know that if our early life is marked by very damaging experiences from either parent or from authority figures it will greatly hinder, diminish our capacity to receive the full Father-love of God. It will distort our image of God and cripple our capacity to trust. The problem is not with God but within us – but they can be overcome.
Young hearts wounded by rejection, hatred, abuse, never told they were loved, striving to please parents who could never be pleased – these hearts will grow up with a distorted image of God; indeed they will come to project their pain onto God and may come to hate him, and certainly to distrust him.
All of us are damaged in some way by life’s experiences since our parents were not perfect, and life may have treated us harshly both in childhood and adulthood.
So what are we to do?
The spiritual counsel I am now going to give applies whether you are born again or not. We can make progress into a deeper experience of the love of God by engaging heart, mind and will.
The mind is primary – if you become aware that your image of God is distorted then the way to correct it is to lay careful attention to what God says about himself in his Word. Ask him to teach you what he is really like.
Heart – our hearts affect our perceptions – and where there is darkness and hurt from the past it may not be easy to clear – some healing can take a long time; at other times it may come quickly. Generally it needs another person coming alongside in prayer and bringing to you God’s truth, his love and praying with you that the Holy Spirit would bring to your heart the revelation of God’s love that will replace and heal the hurts. But for this to start, obviously we must become aware of the problem and begin to open it up before God.
Will – even if we are well taught, and even if a distorted God-concept has been healed, we need then to actually live out the faith of a child of God in order to reinforce and maintain the relationship – a devotional life of worship, prayer and obedience. We need to make choices and decisions that seek, trust and obey our heavenly Father.
Then we shall prove his reality.
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