Our Father’s Love
The Purpose is to:
1)Reveal our Heavenly Father through scripture.
2)Life Without a Dad and the impact on children.
3)Examine the God-given role of an earthly father.
4)Express our Father’s heart for his children.
Lets begin by taking a look at Our Heavenly Father in Scripture:
Our Heavenly Father as Revealed in Scriptures
Daniel 7:9 I beheld till the thrones were cast down, and the Ancient of days did sit, whose garment was white as snow, and the hair of his head like the pure wool: his throne was like the fiery flame, and his wheels as burning fire. v.10 A fiery stream issued and came forth from before him: thousand thousands ministered unto him, and ten thousand times ten thousand stood before him: the judgment was set, and the books were opened.
Daniel 7:13 I saw in the night visions, and, behold, one like the Son of man came with the clouds of heaven, and came to the Ancient of days, and they brought him near before him. [This shows us that the Ancient of Days and the Son of man are not one and the same. We know Jesus to be the Son of man, so the Ancient of Days must be our heavenly Father!] v.14 And there was given him dominion, and glory, and a kingdom, that all people, nations, and languages, should serve him: his dominion is an everlasting dominion, which shall not pass away, and his kingdom that which shall not be destroyed.
Daniel 7:21 I beheld, and the same horn made war with the saints, and prevailed against them; v.22 Until the Ancient of days came, and judgment was given to the saints of the most High; and the time came that the saints possessed the kingdom. [side note on prophecy – the indication is clear that the saints will endure much suffering at the hands of this horn of the beast. We are not insulated from the refiners fire]
Now let’s take a look at Read Revelation chapter 4 and see what the throne of our Father looks like….
Here we have an awesome description of the throne of our heavenly Father. We witness with John’s descriptive help our Daddy’s office! There is a lot of business being conducted as he rules the universe and beyond! It would be hard for us to imagine that one as busy as the Father would have time for us in our relatively insignificant needs – yet, there is more to be said on that!
Have you noticed the word “pleasure” here before? What does that tell us as sons and daughters? For one, it tells me my Father is not a grumpy old man, so to speak! He takes pleasure in His creation!
Do you feel like you are unlovable? Did your earthly Daddy ever say “I love you”? Did your father express his pleasure in you as his child? To be fair, sometimes our fathers have loved and shown love to us, but a spirit of rejection in our own hearts – perhaps coming from the sins of our fathers and grandfathers – has blinded our hearts and minds and kept us from recognition of it and the receiving of it.
Too many times our Dads have been too overwhelmed with their own “stuff” to provide for our emotional needs, or even physical ones, not to mention being spiritual leaders and nurturers of our little hearts. We need to reflect as father’s on whether or not we are doing this well with our own children….
You and I are created with a deep need to know the Father’s love for us. You were created for His pleasure, and to receive His pleasure. Do you feel or sense the pleasure of Almighty God upon you? Or do you feel cut off. A cast away. An interruption in His otherwise fulfilling day? Do you KNOW that your Daddy LOVES Y-O-U?
God, who created all things through the spoken word of Jesus Christ and the power of His Holy Spirit, created Y-O-U!
I think it is important to talk about the Godhead a moment to help you gain a perspective on this topic. Have you ever had an inner longing or desire and didn’t know what it was. Perhaps a craving? Then, moments, or perhaps even years later, you are listening to someone express their heart and suddenly the light goes ON!
“That’s exactly what I”VE been feeling!” Or, “THAT”S what I’VE been always wanting or missing too!” Suddenly you become energized! You now have focus and desire to follow through and obtain your previously unspoken dream!
I used to be so Christ focused, [couldn’t say the name “Jesus” because it was to “protestanty” and syrupy sweet meaningless in my judgmental nature of others who did not obey Him] that I saw myself as part of a massive master plan…. God loved me because He made me. God was working a master plan [intellectually driven] and I happened to be a part of it. I had to do my part, and God loved me because, well, errrr, because God loves Everybody! I simply happened to be part of that “everybody” he loved.
Not very fulfilling is it?
If we look at our own selves in creation, we can break down the illustration of an unspoken dream this way:
Our desire comes from our spirit man. It is the place our yearnings and desires, hopes and dreams stem from. This is representative of who the Father is in the Godhead. He is the source, the core, the point of origin of all that proceeds from the Godhead.
Simply put. HE IS THE HEART of the Godhead! And… He is your point of origin!
One day (figuratively – work with me here) He had a longing and a desire. A dream. A very awesome and fantastic dream that would not go away! Here He was, inhabiting eternity. He had fashioned angels and a third of them had turned in rebellion. He, being Love personified, desired an even great object for his love, and so Y-O-U were conceived in his heart!
Jesus Christ is the Word. He takes those thoughts and even as we are to put on the mind of Christ, He put the desire and yearning into thought and meaningful words! The plan to bring it all about came through Him – but the plan begins with the yearning and desire of the Father, with the Word (who was not born Jesus Christ yet) being in agreement and creating all that is, visible and invisible.
Notice a couple things here. Did you see the phrase “pleased the Father”? Here again we see the heart-level love of the Father being the genesis, or beginning of what worked itself out in the life and preeminence of Jesus Christ, who was ordained to be the head of the body, or church, which consists of many members, of which I trust you are one. When we read about the members of the body, we see in 1 Corinthians 12, the necessity of each and every member – regardless of how insignificant the devil tells us we are!
You belong in the body of Christ, preordained by the will of the Father. If you seem insignificant in your own estimation, you are not so lightly esteemed of the Father. There are no vestigial organs in the body of Christ! You may not know your own place or meaning yet, but rest assured, the Father knows! It pleased the Father to call you out of this world to be a partaker with Jesus Christ.
You are part of the party! Your Father is the One who drew you to Jesus in the first place. “No man can come to me except the Father which is in heaven draws him,” says our Lord twice in John chapter 6.
The second point of interest here is that we are ‘unblameable’ and ‘unreprovable’ in our Father’s eyes! Have you ever had a child harm your own child? Recently I had a boy at camp douse my son’s belongings with sunscreen. It ruined a sleeping bag. Now, that puts it on me to decide, “what will the parents say if I tell them about this?”
You probably know where this is going…. Some parents refuse to see that their children could do any wrong. There is no way one could approach them with an ‘accusation’ against their precious little child.. Where do you think we get that instinct from? Our heavenly Father. Except He rightfully holds us as unblameable or unreprovable through Jesus Christ, IF, we continue in the faith, grounded and settled.
And this is why you may have struggled mightily with the feeling you are Unloved and Unlovable – because there are few things as destructive to our will to pursue a relationship as the belief that someone is only tolerating us, if that. We are not born to live in a tolerant society. We are born to live in a loving society. We are not created to live under the credo ‘do as you will, but do harm toward none.” We are created to “love your neighbor as yourself,” to the point of laying down our lives and selfish desires and pride for one another. We are not called to a self serving life, but a life that builds others up in fulfilling a Greater Purpose that gives meaning to our lives.
If Satan can get you to believe your Heavenly Father does not love you, he has just gut-punched you! You and I lose the will to even seek after such a God, if we believe the lie. Now, if we are children, but fail to continue in the faith because we are unsettled by everything in us screaming that the Father is mean and hard and unloving, the devil can get us to forfeit our crown. He does this with our agreement if we “throw in the towel” and turn from our Father’s love.
POOR FATHERING: How Satan Sets Us up to Fail!
Think for a moment. If you were God and had all power and authority…. If you had created a new realm of beings…. human beings in this case…. what title of authority, or relationship would you choose? How would you want them to relate to you?
God had that choice. He doesn’t have us address Him as “Our Landlord who art in heaven,” does He? Yet, He owns the earth and the fullness thereof.
He doesn’t have us address Him with, “Our General who art in heaven,” though the armies of heaven move at His command with Jesus Christ as the Captain of the Hosts who shall one day return on His white horse, suited for battle.
The title of choice the Ancient of Days has for us to address Him is founded upon a loving relationship model. He is our Father, by His choice of choices!
The position of Father is one of loving authority. It is a position of protection and provision. This is the relationship God has chosen to call His own, because this was that wild dream and amazing thought He couldn’t shake thousands of years ago!
With this in mind, we come to our earthly fathers. When God created Adam, the first command was to ‘be fruitful and multiply.” He was to become a father! God placed a very powerful spiritual influence in the role of fatherhood because it was to lead people from conception to “graduation” to Himself. Fathers are invested with a very powerful influence! This influence can be for good, or evil.
When this earth became corrupted by sin, Satan took special aim at undermining the role of fathers. Today we see father’s characterized as wimps and buffoons and certainly not capable of being an authority figure – unless the authority was abuse and abrasive.
Lets take a look at the impact of failed fathers on society….
Stay tuned. I will further develop this and we will examine The Father’s Love and its impact on our lives in the near future …..
Be blessed,
Tim