The Father's heart for you

It is easy to think God, the Father is distant. That He is some abstract person. And even if we don’t think that way, our actions would lead one to think God is not around. It is like having your parents in the next room, not knowing what is happening in your room or living in another part of the country. They are around but they can’t really do anything, can they?

Either way, the fact that it escapes your mind does not mean He is not around and much more closer than you think. The fact that you don’t hear Him does not mean He is not talking. Jesus came into this world to show us that God, the Father was so close to Him, closer than anyone. Imagine Him saying: the hour is coming, and it has arrived, when you will all be dispersed and scattered, every man to his own home, leaving Me alone. Yet I am not alone, because the Father is with Me.  Can you just imagine that!! He was basically saying: I will not experience loneliness; I have my father to keep me company.  You should note, this was at a time when people were gonna reject Jesus, His very closest friends were gonna forsake Him…How much that must have hurt!!

And I know some of you have been hurt in similar ways. Rejected by those you love and you have been going on hurting and feeling alone and yet look at how Jesus responded to rejection. One would think: ‘ Oh maybe He did not love His friends enough.’  But No!! that’s not it. He just knew that people had limitations and no matter how close they were, there was no one who would be there for Him as His Father. I am not saying its wrong to count on people but I am saying though, that sometimes we might fail to hear God, or to experience Him because we just rush off to someone else. What would happen if at those times, we firstly told God about it? Jesus had an earthly mom, a dad, brothers… He would have so totally run to them and told them how hard His whole life was turning out to be. It sounds ridiculous even saying it but He would have done it. He was human just like you and me( Philippians 2:7). With the same pains and hurts. He loved His mommy, his daddy and brothers just like you do. Knowing Him, He must have had good relationships with them, maybe even better than yours considering the moods and all..hehehe….In view of this, I wondered why He did not act so. If He was really like me, why was He so different? What was the difference between Him and us?

The more I learn about Jesus, the more I realise He was different because He knew who He was and the relationship He had with His dad. That is the root of it. If we really knew who we are in God and the kind of intimacy we can have with Him, there would be no worrying, selfishness and all that. Casting Crowns has sang a song I like, ‘To Know you’. It talks about how to know Him is to never worry for our lives. Listen to it, its truth.

 

And well Jesus came to tell us and to show us that: hey, guess what???!!! If you gave your life to Me, if you love Me, He is your daddy too.  You can see this through many of the times He referred to the Father. In Matthew 6:25-34, He essentially said, "…look at the birds in the sky, they just fly around and are so happy, eating and singing, they don’t sow or reap yet the Father feeds them. Are you not worth more to Him? Why worry? Don’t be worried about anything. Just be happy and joyful because the Father will take care of it all.  Just look also at all the flowers..They are so bright and beautiful…no one on earth has ever out-dressed them and yet they die so quickly. People would say it’s a waste to make them so beautiful but the Father doesn't. He has dressed them all. And if He took that time with flowers, how much more time has He put in making sure you have it all. There is nothing you can want that your Heavenly Father does not know that you want. So don’t act like you have no Father who loves you by worrying about who you are or what you will be.. just live, live without a care in the world." He went on to say in Matthew 7:11 that if your earthly parents can give you pretty much all you can ask for if you ask from them; if they can make the sacrifices they have for you, how much more can the Heavenly Father give you?. In other words, His love for you is beyond any love you will ever experience from any human. I can go on but I can only squeeze one more..hahaha…the best one for me..

Jesus said that the Father HIMSELF loves you (John 16:27). I am still wrapping my head around that one. It’s the Father right? The one of whom the whole family in Heaven and earth is named [that Father from Whom all fatherhood takes its title and derives its name]…(Ephesians 3: 14-15)!! He is the one who loves me. He loves you!! The one who owns it all loves me!! Do you understand how HUGE THAT IS!! He could have loved anything.. ANYTHING!! and yet He made you the focus of His affection. The apple of His eye. The prime recipient of His love.  He has an engraving of you in His palm (Isaiah 49:15-16). He can never forget you. Just never!!! He has numbered your hair, one after the other (Matthew 10:29-31). Not counted it, but coded it in some manner. Maybe, it’s A, B,C…I have no idea..hahaha..If one drops off, even if you have not noticed, He knows it. He knows that hair, code number B is off Ruth’s head. This is incredible. I just know nothing about me is too insignificant for Him to be interested in.  He watches over you, night and day. He neither sleeps nor slumbers (Psalm 121:4). Nothing can come at you that He hasn’t foreseen. Nothing can harm you. He has it that bad for you. And honestly, it should be suffocating right? But its not. Its liberating.  Say goodbye to fear!! Why would you be afraid when He is watching you? Say goodbye to worry. Why worry when He’s got you? Jesus got this. He so got this and I yearn to get it too. It would really be easy living. The one who sits on the throne, the boss of all bosses, loves me. Until we reach this understanding we do not fully get His love and we should be asking Him to reveal it to us.

A lot of people just think they can not know the love of God really so they don’t even try to know it. Its just a matter of I know He loves me. But do you really know? If you would be open to it, God can reveal it to you. If He could not, Paul wasted a lot of prayers on the Ephesians because he prayed continuously for them, that God would give them the spirit of wisdom and knowledge of Him, of His love. At one point he even said, that I know, people can not understand Your love, but I pray that You reveal it to them, that they comprehend it (Ephesians 3:14-20). If you want to use your intelligence to know it…Good luck.  It will save you time though, if you humbled yourself and asked Him to show you. And don’t stop asking until He does so. Your continuous earnest prayer will avail much.

Personally, I have had a hard time getting to know and to accept His love ( I still have not yet been perfected in it). You can have it differently. Maybe you already are.  If it was in the physical, you can say I have shut my door in His face before because I was being spoilt..hahaha…I was wanting things the way I wanted them only, and when they weren’t I forgot how good He was to me and said: how could this happen on your watch? How could you leave me? Looking back on that, I realise how ignorant that was. I am never left alone. Only Jesus was for a time really really forsaken by the Father but that was because He became sin for your sake. Only He ever rightly said that. I can’t imagine how that must have been like. I know I surely can’t live without God and thank God I won’t ever have to.

  

When I finally opened the door again, there was a lot of pretence with Him. I was all smiles and telling Him how good He was. But I have learnt that like any relationship honesty is important with God. The fact that He knows it all before we ask does not mean we should not voice it. Why pray then? He wants to know what is on your mind. When I finally got tired of the masks, I began to tell Him a lot about how I felt. I told Him I didn’t think I trusted Him, like the Bible said to and how I wished I really meant it when I said I loved Him. I think I believed more that He was a good God than that I loved Him. I asked Him to help me grow in the knowledge of Him (No matter how much you know, you do not know it all even if you have to read the verse a thousand times, because He is greater than you; there is always something new He can teach you. This can also be true of our prayer lives. Sometimes we just talk and talk to God, telling Him what is wrong or at least what we think is wrong, asking and asking, without listening to Him speak. Not that you shouldn’t talk but learn to listen. He is after all, your Father).

Anyway I am still learning more. I do believe being a Christian means you are forever going to be a learner. Not that you will feel inadequate but you will also know there is still more. I hear it almost everyday; Christians saying how much they want to  know God more and be more intimate with Him. But it is not happening and frustrations begin to rise.  What we have to know is that God will not hand it to you on a silver platter. He has already given you salvation, a fresh start, love, everything you could ever want in this life. Do you want Him to inject you with knowledge as well while you are just sitted comfortably going on with your own life? He will not. From the beginning God has never intruded into the lives of people. If you want Him that bad, you will seek Him and He is a rewarder of those who diligently seek Him (Hebrews 11:6). If your relationship with Him is going to work, you are going to have to put in some work. Paul said that although he was who he was by grace yet he worked the hardest than all the apostles. He took advantage of the grace God gave him ( 1 Corinthians  15:9-11). So while He knew he could do all things through Christ, he didn’t just sit with this knowledge, with this advantage, he really did go about doing things. Even in this world we live in, if I wanted to learn something, the information does not automatically appear in my head, I have to search for it, in books, from people….Why would the principle be different? If you look for God you will find Him. He promised. If you read the word you will grow (1 Peter 2:2). It is not theory, its fact. Of course consistency matters. If you are on a diet and eat salads today and chocolate the whole of tomorrow, it will not work. It has to be consistent. Even when you do not feel like it. You just have to keep on doing it and being expectant that he will do as His word says. If you miss a day, don’t beat yourself up, just carry on the next and the next. Its really okay. Just keep on earnestly doing it instead of just talking about doing it.

I do pray that you would open your heart to this word and not just to read but to do it and that at what ever level you are that you would seek Him more so that you grow in the Knowledge of Him. He loves you so so ssssssssssssssoooooo much. Oh that you would see the Father’s heart for you!!