Life Together

Fear not, little flock, for it is your Father's good pleasure to give you the kingdom - Luke 12:32

As I began to pray this morning, I felt an inner prompting to ask the Father to deepen and strengthen my personal knowledge and awareness of His fatherly love for me. To convince me - really convince me deep within - that He loves me with a father's love! 

That's probably not a particularly unusual prayer for many Christians; I know I have asked that of the Lord numerous times before. What was unusual (to me, at least) was the inner motivation for that prayer. What was prompting me to pray that way wasn't so much a desire to feel the love of the Father (though thatis right and good and pretty incredible!) What was prompting me was a desire to honor the Father for His love. Here's what I mean:

God has been crazy good to me all my life. He has (most importantly) opened my eyes and heart to believe in Jesus Christ as my Savior and my Lord. He has blessed me, and guided me, and answered my prayers (not always as I asked or expected, but looking back, always for my best), and just been kind to me - and all of this completely undeserved. He has shown Himself over and over again to be a Father who's good pleasure is in doing good to me. And this being so, to question whether He loves me as a Father, to doubt His love, to not rejoice and be amazed and be confident of His fatherly care and love over me is to dishonor my loving heavenly Father.

I have three children and I love them all very much and hope that I demonstrate that love everyday. I certainly tell them I love them every day! And it would sadden me if they were uncertain about whether I loved them. In a very real sense, it would be a dishonor to me if they constantly questioned my love for them, because it would color my actions and declarations of love as untrue and untrustworthy. Any generosity and kindness and provision and help I give them would be diminished because they weren't convinced of my deep love in providing these things to them. Now, I am an imperfect and selfish and sinful father, so my love is imperfect and how I show my love is imperfect. And yet I still expect and hope it to be enough to convince them.

Our heavenly Father lavishes His undeserved and gracious love on His children generously! If all He provided for us was His Son for our salvation it would be infinitely more than we could ever expect or deserve. And yet, while the cross is the greatest demonstration of His love, it isn't the only demonstration by any means - not by a long shot! It is, according to Jesus, the Father's good pleasure to give us the kingdom - He delights and enjoys giving us free and welcoming entrance into His glorious kingdom! And from my experience, it is the Father's good pleasure to do good to me in a thousand ways every day. So I want to live in an awareness and amazement over His generous and big-hearted love for me because living in that awareness and amazement (and lack of questioning) acknowledges the Father for Who He is and that honors and appreciates Him and what He has done and what He does every day.

Jesus didn't just want to assure us that the Father would give us the kingdom. He purposely reveals to us that the Father loves to give us His kingdom. Jesus isn't just making a statement about the kingdom or about us - the loudest statement Jesus is making here is about the Father's heart. And because of His heart, we don't need to fear. In fact I would say that what settles our fears most powerfully isn't the assurance that we will be given the kingdom, what settles our fear most powerfully is our Father's delight in doing good to us, culminating in giving us the kingdom. If that's the case (and it is!) then why would we ever fear again? Perfect love drives out fear!

I want to honor my heavenly Father by living confidently in His love - such a loving and gracious Father deserves no less!