Encouragement

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Written
Mar 7 2008 07:32PM


I feel very strongly led to talk about the Father's love.

I am sometimes accused of being critical when I speak forth the word without watering it down as is done today.
Sometimes people will tell me that the Holy Spirit would not point out to us these things, that it is not loving to do so or that I should not speak about the church doing something wrong, that I should only pray.
And that none of us are perfect, and no one teaches a perfect doctrine.
What is overlooked is that Paul told us to be like the Bereans, to study to show ourselves approved and that he Himself warned of false teachings in the church.

I believe it is time to look at the Fathers love.
He does love us and nothing will separate us from that love.
But we must see God in a complete picture. Please let me take you back in time, but first let us look at a Father's love.

God is Love, He loves us a Father would, and does.
A Father out of His love for us will also teach us the best way, and teach us what is harmful to us, and what can destroy our lives.

He starts out leading us gently, and then when that is ignored, he stops speaking, he allows us to experience trials but He continues to love us, that is called learning by our experiences.

In all of this he is teaching us to listen and obey Him, but often self knows better what it wants and it dangerously does things its own way.
This is called rebellion or ignoring the voice of the Holy Spirit.

But any Father who loves His children will bring about correction, he will discipline that child so as to bring them to a place of listening, submission and obedience.
He teaches us godly fear to obey Him.

I know for many of you this is alien. And though the Lord loves us unconditionally, He is the same God of the whole bible.
And when a child will not listen, and when this child continues to go his or her own way, and refuses to repent and return home to the Father's arms. Then very often a Father will leave the child to their own undoing.

What the Father wants the child to do is like the prodigal. He wants the child to get tired of the pig sties of the world, the self destruction, lust of the world, and return home.
And when he does, He will run to the child with open arms and will give Him His best, he will shower Him with gifts. This is the Father's heart.

But as you remember before the flood, that God's said every imagination of man's heart was continually evil and was sorry he made man.
So though God loves us and is merciful and full of loving kindness, just as an earthly father, there comes a time when man refuses to turn back to Him, refuses to listen and obey Him, then He has no choice to take His hands off, and fulfill His word.
There will be no sinners in heaven, no liars, no adulterers, no sorcerers, murderers, no idolaters.

He will never stop loving even those who turn away, but He is true to his word, His word never returns void.

I realize we live in a society that doesn't understand what I have stated above. We live in a very permissive society that allows children to do whatever they want, and if they cry for something it is given them.

Many do not discipline their children as the Father does.
So a God that doesn't just love us and not discipline us no matter what we do, they cannot comprehend, they have put God in their own self made box.
And instead of man doing what God wants them to do, they expect God to do what THEY WANT Him to do, to suit their way of life.

Those who understand how the Father disciplines those He loves, teach their children this same way and they learn what a loving merciful Father they have, and they also learn the boundaries their Father has taught them through what he has taught in His word.
These same children turn out to be beautiful children in their Father's image, full of love and mercy, and in turn, teach their own children in this same manner.

We have to look at the cross to understand a Father's love.
He loved His only begotten Son. But he loved the world and he gave his only Son up as a sacrifice to the world so that you and I could have forgiveness of sins, and have access to the Father.

Can you understand this Father's love?

He watched as His Son that He GAVE to come to earth to be a propitiation for our sins, die on the cross.
He heard Him as He cried out in the Garden, he heard Him saying, "Take this cup from Me, if thou wilt, never the less not my will but thine be done.
THAT IS LOVE.
How He had to watch Him being persecuted, and brutally beaten.
His hair and beard pulled out of his head, and to be forced to carry His own heavy cross to Golgotha, with his back bleeding and his skin hanging from Him like butchered meat.

Then to watch Him be stripped of all His garments to be brought to open shame before the world.
To be nailed, hands and feet to a crude crossbeam. It was pushed up against His back every time He took a breath and His back that was like mince meat and bleeding.

Then to watch Him suffer as He could not even take a breath, without agonizing pain. All His suffering was agonizing and unbearable for our loving Father.

The Father knew He had to leave His Son for a time when He bore all of our sins upon His back because He could not look upon sin.
The greatest agony at that time must have been when His Son cried out.
Mat 27:46 And about the ninth hour Jesus cried with a loud voice, saying, Eli, Eli, lama sabachthani? that is to say, My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?

Sin causes a separation between us and the Father, and so it was with our Lord. That must have been unbearable to the Father, for His Son to think He had abandoned Him.

But still He was true to His word.

He agonized with His Son, he agonized because His word had to be fulfilled. He agonized because he knew some would reject this sacrifice, he agonized knowing that some would not truly follow His son, and some would fall away.

The Father watched Him suffer for you and I.

All because of the Father's love for us, so that we would be able to come boldly before the throne of grace, and to have our sins washed away in His blood. So that there would be no longer a separation between He and His children.

Some say the Lord would not allow them to go through suffering, but YET HE ALLOWED HIS OWN SON TO SUFFER FOR OUR SAKE.
The Father cannot go against His own word, it must be fulfilled and Yeshua's death on the cross was prophesied in the old Testament.
Just as the coming judgment for those who reject God's ways for their own. He is loving and kind, compassionate and merciful, He warns and he waits, but there will come a time when He says, "ENOUGH", just as he did before the flood. Just as he did before Sodom and Gomorrah.

In the garden of Gethsemane, Yeshua learned obedience to the Father. He knew that no matter what lay ahead of Him, He had to obey at all cost. The word says he sweat great drops of blood. This in itself had to be agonizing to face knowing exactly what He would suffer ahead of time.
Mat 26:39 And he went a little further, and fell on his face, and prayed, saying, O my Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass from me: nevertheless not as I will, but as thou wilt.

I know the Lord has great compassion for us, He seeks those who are needy for Him, those who need just one look from him.
That long for him, and His word, that will make Him everything in their lives.

Yet much of what is referred to as the bride, have gone their own way, it wants to create their own idea of the Father.
They want to take out hell and the cross, and certainly being covered by the blood right out of their teaching, they want the Father to look the other way and to condone what they do, wink at their sin.

It is very much like we see between husbands and wives today, marriage is being redefined, and women go their own way and men go their own way, do their own thing. There is no order or structure.
Men marry men, and women marry women. Is this the way God designed His creation? Is this the original design of our Father?
Is this how the Father created the bride? Does He serve us or do we serve Him?

Oh, how He loves you and I. but the point here is we have to look at what He says in His word, is best for us.

Rom 9:19 Thou wilt say then unto me, Why doth he yet find fault? For who hath resisted his will?

Rom 9:20 Nay but, O man, who art thou that repliest against God? Shall the thing formed say to him that formed it, Why hast thou made me thus?

Rom 9:21 Hath not the potter power over the clay, of the same lump to make one vessel unto honour, and another unto dishonour?

Rom 9:22 What if God, willing to shew his wrath, and to make his power known, endured with much longsuffering the vessels of wrath fitted to destruction:

Just like an earthly Father, Our Father loves us and cares about what happens to us, He cares when we are sick or in need, he cares when we are not going in the right direction. He wants us to make right choices, even in our choice of spouse.
At one time the parents chose the mates for their children, in some countries this is still done.

I know many do not know what a real Father's love is, like myself who grew up with out a Father, and what I had was very stern and mostly unloving. he disciplined but he didn't do it in love.
Our heavenly Father disciplines us because He loves us. he knows if we go our own way and he cannot bring us back we will be lost.
He will leave His other children and go to look for us, but if we still rebel and refuse to go our own way, he will have no choice but to allow us to be in the judgment with the unrighteous. It is our own choice.
Just as hell was not made for people. but was made for the devil and his angels. But we make our own choices, and the Father will not go against our own will.
Nothing will separate us from the love of God, even in judgment. His love is eternal. Just as an earthly Father.
He loves you, will you love Him?
Eze 12:25 For I am the LORD: I will speak, and the word that I shall speak shall come to pass; it shall be no more prolonged: for in your days, O rebellious house, will I say the word, and will perform it, saith the Lord GOD.

Brothers and sisters, How our Father loves us, and he longs to have a really up front and personal relationship with us. He wants us to know Him and His heart, and when we do, when we draw close to him, He will draw close to us.
We then see him as nothing but love, because we have succumbed to His love. this is what he yearns for, this was His design, not to judge us, but it is our own rebellion that causes us to be outside the door, that causes us to not be ready when He knocks..

My desire is not to criticize but open eyes. My heart grieves for all that have gone their own way. I am like one crying out in the wilderness.

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