“For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.” John 3:16
“You’re a good, good Father, it’s who You are, it’s who You are…And I’m loved by You, it’s who I am…” Pat Barrett and Tony Brown
- Call your prayer partner for your 10-minute prayer call! Remember to keep it short, but take a moment to remember each other in prayer.
- Welcome to Easter with the Help Club! Get ready for six weeks of insightful and practical Bible Studies and “Mom Tips” designed to help your Easter be more meaningful and fun for you and your family.
- Read 1 Peter 1:18-20, 1 John 4:9-10 and John 3:16. Ask God to speak to your heart about His great love—the love which He has shown since before the creation of the world!
Is God a good Father to you? Do you feel unconditionally loved by Him?
Maybe you have a hard time feeling loved by God because your earthly father was harsh, absent, hard to please, or simply a bad representative of your heavenly one. If any of these describe your earthly dad, you may feel that God is simply watching and waiting for you to fail so He can strike you with some affliction or disappointment.
Knowing the truth about the love of God is so important because this understanding is an influencing factor in how much we trust Him. This trust helps us to live the victorious, full life God intends for His children. It determines our attitudes towards God and our relationships with Him, others, and even ourselves.
When we understand the unending, faithful love of God, it helps us live the surrendered life filled with “immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine, according to His power that is at work within us” (Ephesians 3:20b).
If you need encouragement about the love of our good Father, you need not look any further than the Scriptures. There, you will find great examples of God’s perfect love. It is best represented by the ultimate sacrifice of God: sending His one and only Son, Jesus, to earth to die for our sins so we can live in fellowship with Him. By this sacrifice, we can receive Jesus as our Lord and be filled with the Holy Spirit, never be alone, and always be surrounded and filled with His great love.
I remember how overwhelmed I felt when I first read Revelation 13:8b, “…the Lamb that was slain from the creation of the world,” and realized the unimaginable fact that God knew He was going to have to send His son to earth to die for all mankind before the earth was even formed, and even though He knew the magnitude of that sacrifice, He still did it.
Since God is outside of our understanding of time and sees all things past, present, and future, He knew ahead of time the sin Adam would commit. This sin caused every human being to be born spiritually dead and in need of a Savior. God knew He was going to have to send Jesus to die a gruesome death so you and I could be close to our holy God.
This, my friend, is the great love John speaks of in 1 John 4:9-10, “This is how God showed his love among us: He sent his one and only Son into the world that we might live through him. This is love: not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins.”
When we are tempted by thoughts that God is not a good Father and He can’t be trusted, simply ponder this one, deep truth—no matter what kind of an earthly father you had, you can look at the heavenly Father’s ultimate sacrifice for you and see that He loved you before the earth was formed. Your relationship and closeness with Him is of utmost importance! My friend, even if you were the only one on this earth, He would still have died for you.
I love how St. Augustine says, “God loves each of us as if there were only one of us.”
If you struggle with feeling loved by God because of the lack of your earthly father’s love, try to remember that God is not like anyone you have ever known. He is God; there is no one who has ever walked this earth who is like Him, except Jesus, who is also God.
Even by simply looking at the best gift of all, the gift of Jesus, we can see that God is good and loves us. His love is not based on your performance or anything you can do for Him. He loves you simply because that is what God does—He loves! He loves us with a deep, unending, and unfathomable love. “For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life” (John 3:16).
I pray that this one great truth will encourage you today, and “that you, being rooted and established in love, may have power, together with all the Lord’s holy people, to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ, and to know this love that surpasses knowledge—that you may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God” (Ephesians 3:17b-19).
Imagine what your life would be like if you completely trusted God as your good and loving Father. What would it be like? How would you live differently?
Blessings and Love,
Deb
Questions to Ponder
- Are there any areas of your life where you are feeling unloved by God? Ask God to show you these areas and write them in your journal.
- Does God want you to surrender the unloved places in your heart to Him? Remember, He wants good for you and has great things in store for your life.
- Do you have any places in your heart that were hurt by your earthly father? Ask God to heal you today!
Faith-Filled Ideas
God says in His Word that we need to pray and ask Him to help us understand how much He loves us. Write Ephesians 3:17-19 on your bathroom mirror in dry erase marker, then record it on your phone’s recording device. Pray and listen to these powerful verses every day this week and ask God to show you His great love. Write any revelations you receive in your journal so you can always remember how much God loves you!
I remember going into my daughter's room night after night and kneeling beside her bed and crying my heart out to God because I didn’t know how to be a Christian mom; I felt like I had no idea what I was doing. You know what? God is so faithful! He answered me and simply said, “Spend time with me, Deb.” And so I did. I began arising 15-30 minutes earlier each day so I could read my Bible and pray, and plan out my day with my family.
If there was one thing I would love to share with you is that God is personal and loves you as you are. You don’t have to be perfect to be loved by our amazing God! Come as you are! His loving presence can be practically known and experienced. He is not a God who is far away, He is near and easily found. He longs for you to come to Him!
Randy and I have been married for 33 years and we have two grown children, Christie, and Jack, and one answer to prayer son-in-law named Alex. And now I get to be a Gigi to my sweet little grandbabies, Aspen and Skylar, and Piper. Yay!
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