Really knowing the love of God as my Heavenly Father should produce demonstrable virtues in my life. Since God demonstrated His love for me with such compassion and grace, why do I sometimes fear love? Why is it hard to constantly keep loving and providing for an elderly mother who has always been judgmental, trapped in her own world of negativism? I find it so easy to love my grand babies. Beyond that it is easy for me to show love and compassion to my patients at work. It is even easy for me to even do random acts of kindness to strangers.
It is a matter of the heart, you see; and, that is where mine needs to grow just a little bit bigger. The only way for that to happen is to keep my eyes focused on my heavenly Father and remind myself that in Christ, God is my Daddy. The one I can fall before unashamed with my tears, my failures, and my fears. I can lay all else aside and trust His love for me to make it all better. He will and He will fill my heart with so much of His love that my heart will grow too. That is what He has promised.
VULNERABLE IN LOVE, BECAUSE GOD IS MY FATHER
Love requires you lay your heart wide open, vulnerable knowing at any moment it can be crushed into pieces, by injury, sorrows, or rejection. Yet, I choose to love, knowing that I am vulnerable. Never to love causes a withering of the spirit and bones which is a form of death itself.
According to John 17:26 God chose to love me with the same powerful love that He loved His son. He loved me even knowing I would break His heart repeatedly with my lack of trust, my selfish nature, and my failures. Furthermore, to love me required that His Beloved only begotten son die a cruel death on a cross to pay the price for my salvation. How great a pain God Bore, just to love me as His Child. Perfect love chose to suffer the ridicule, the pain, and rejection to bestow on me His Joy and His love.
Some say; “if He loved us that much He should just save everyone and forget about righteousness.” But you see He cannot because He is God and He is perfect righteousness; justice would never allow that. Beyond that He knows that you nor I would never understand the height, the breadth, nor the depth of His love were it not for the cross. He also knows that if our heart was never broken by love, we could never understand the sacrifice and the brokenness He endured to love us. Furthermore, He knew we could not truly know His joy and His love, if we could not see all the spectrum of His Beauty and Glory. I cannot fully experience God, if I don’t know all His characteristics including His righteousness, His justice, His Mercy, His omnipotence, His Sovereignty, and the list goes on into eternity.
ADOPTED AT A VERY HIGH PRICE
Did you ever consider the agonizing pain that God endured because He loved you and me? Did you ever think about how God’s heart must have ripped in shreds with each blow that the whips made on his son’s body? Or consider how much pain He felt as the nails were driven into the feet and hands of His Son? How agonizing it must have been to turn His head away as our sin and guilt were laid upon His Innocent Son’s shoulders? He could have at any moment stopped the whole scene with one sweep of His Hand. He could have said done–I am not going to do this. Yet, He loved you and me so much that He endured that pain and Christ loved you and me so much that He willingly paid the price for you and for me. What manner of love is that?
He chose to endure the most agonizing sorrow to be able to call me His child, to lavish His love on me and to share His eternal Joy with me. How can I ever doubt His love? Can I ever doubt His Sovereign Plan for my life, if I know He loves me? What could ever cause me to moan about my circumstances? How can I ever be worried about my heart breaking when the comforter knows what heart break is? He who knows that to love means you must sacrifice your heart and be vulnerable is the very one who will repair my broken heart.
VIRTUES GAINED BY KNOWING GOD’S LOVE
Knowing that God is my Daddy should result in my having these 5 virtues overflowing in my life.
- Love which can forgive anything and which so fills my heart it overflows.
- Peace that rests in the strength of who God is.
- Joy that causes my heart to sing even in the worst of storms.
- Hope that allows me to see the good in every circumstance.
- Faith that makes me fearless when trials come
THEREFORE:
Since I know that is true, why do I sometimes fear love or get so angry or hurt by mom? Why don’t these virtues shine forth in my life? Oh, I can tell you exactly what happens. That happens when I forget who I am in Christ as God’s Chosen, Beloved Child. A voice deep inside, laughs and says; “Love you? How could God love you? Look at you!” That is when my response to my accuser must be, “Oh, yeah I know I am not perfect. In fact, I deserve death and hell; you are right. But God chose me, to love me and to make me His Child. Take one look at the cross of Christ and tell me my Daddy doesn’t love me. He loves me with an everlasting love and I am His Child—I will trust my Daddy today. So, Satan, go to where you belong and leave me alone.”
When you do all the guilt, pain, and anger will melt away. God replaces it with His love, peace and joy. You see most of our anger or sorrow does not come from what people have said or done to us; it comes from our fear that they are right. So, just like my Heavenly Daddy; I choose love. I know my He will be there to catch me every time I fall.
Jesus prayed: John 17:
22And the glory which thou gavest me I have given them; that they may be one, even as we are one: 23I in them, and thou in me, that they may be made perfect in one; and that the world may know that thou hast sent me, and hast loved them, as thou hast loved me. 24 Father, I will that they also, whom thou hast given me, be with me where I am; that they may behold my glory, which thou hast given me: for thou lovedst me before the foundation of the world.25 O righteous Father, the world hath not known thee: but I have known thee, and these have known that thou hast sent me. 26And I have declared unto them thy name, and will declare it: that the love wherewith thou hast loved me may be in them, and I in them.”
If you don’t know Jesus Christ as your Savior: I urge you to go to my page titled How to Be Saved by clicking on this link, if you have a prayer request email me by clicking here or comment here
CONCLUDING TWEETS
[bctt tweet=”Anger isn’t usually about what people have said as much as fear they maybe right ” username=”effiedarlene”]
[tweetthis]Knowing God loves me as His Child, what can I fear? Certainly, not love[/tweetthis]
OTHER RESOURCES AVAILABLE
A Broken and Contrite Heart, I published in 2010, answers the question, “What do I do when I keep falling into the same sin? Does God hate me because I keep failing to get this write? So, where do I begin again and find joy in my salvation; after, falling. If you want to know more about this book or the other books I have written: You can find a link at: Book Resources.
©Effie Darlene Barba, 2017
Disclosure of Material Connection: I have not received any compensation for writing this post. I have no material connection to the brands, products, or services that I have mentioned except for my own books. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commission’s 16 CFR, Part 255: “Guides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising.
Photo by Kelly Sikkema on Unsplash The inscription I added