Jesus died so the penalty and power of sin might be done away with. Jesus died so the way might be opened for us to join God’s family.
When we gave Jesus our allegiance, the Father adopted us, brought us home to live with him and his family. He made us his own. Now, like all good fathers, he is concerned about caring for us, guiding us and providing for us. He wants us to develop, grow, achieve our potential, live our dreams and make decisions that bring good into the world. He will work with us, walk with us every step of the way, to make certain these things happen. He speaks to us all the time. However, we aren’t always tuned in.
We do not know what the final result should be. We do know the Father wants us to be like Jesus. We have a hazy picture of what that is. But he is making it clearer and clearer.
We are members of his family. Each of us have a unique and special relationship with our Father. Even though his children number in the hundreds of millions, he is able to given each child 100% focused attention. He is able to work in the minute details of each child’s life.
We have all heard of stories about terrible fathers. They are cruel. They are selfish. They make awful decisions that have a 100-megaton impact on their children’s lives. We, as children of the All-Good Father, may experience bad things. But it will never be at the hand of a cruel, selfish, unwise father. His goals and intentions have always been from eternity past, from the time he designed us, our good, our joy and our peace. He is always 100% sold out for us.
- Living My Life
Realizing God’s attitude about us and for us, should give his children an amazing life posture. Again, I don’t think God takes sin lightly; I don’t think his children should take sin lightly. I am beginning to think for too many give it more importance than it should. Our hearts are given to avoid dis-pleasing God. We should focus our hearts on pleasing God.
Focusing on “not displeasing” leads to a life of making sure we are keeping the rules. And we can never keep the rules. (NOTE: do not use this as a license to break the rules. That is not the point.) We go from sin, to guilt trip, to resolution to do better, to sin … in a never ending spiral.
We need to focus on resting and relying on his love and provision. We need to trust in his intentions and work, which he has shown and proven time and again. We need to be grateful for what he has done, knowing that his actions demonstrate his absolute support for his children. He has already given us what we need, and made available everything else we might need. We need to cooperate with his purposes for us, realizing it entails some way of sharing love.
Living as God’s child means refraining giving too much time and energy to failures, when the major portion of both should be our relationship with our Father, and the natural expression of love, that should be the outcome of the relationship.
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