May 21, 2024

God’s Love

Kingdom of God, Parenting

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God’s love is beyond what all of us can even imagine. The Bible tells us when we give our lives to Christ, He comes to dwell in our heart. He removes our heart of stone and gives us a heart of flesh in order to begin to understand the height, width, depth and length of His love. (Ephesians 3:16-18)

I will share a story of a father’s love for his sons. It beautifully depicts just how far a father will go to keep his sons safe. This story helped me to better understand Jesus’ sacrifice for us.

A Picture Of Jesus’ Sacrifice

There was a father who took his sons on a sailing trip through the Caribbean Islands. The father was negotiating the sailboat between two islands that were fairly close to each other. In this area, the water was notoriously shark infested. One of the islands housed a chicken farm and chicken scraps were tossed into the water.

The father reminded his sons to remain onboard and to not swim in this stretch of water. The boys didn’t take their Father’s wise request seriously and made fun of the situation. They started to roughhouse on the boat deck. As things were heating up, one of the sons lost his balance and began to fall overboard. The other son tried to grab him but to no avail, he also fell into the water.

The dad saw what had transpired and shouted to them to swim back immediately and get in the boat. In the water, the boys were pretending to be eaten by sharks, unaware of the potential dire situation.

From the fathers vantage point, he could see that a couple of sharks were starting to swim toward the boys. The father yelled and screamed to warn his sons to swim back. When the boys finally realized that their dad was serious, the danger was eminent. A school of sharks was encircling the boys. The father- knowing that sharks can detect a drop of blood in multiple gallons of water- slit his wrists and jumped overboard opposite of his sons. The sharks swam towards the blood and the two boys were able to get back on deck safely. The father perished.

There Is No Protection Outside The Will Of God

This is a picture of what God did for us through His son. He sent Jesus to teach us to live safely and to avoid situations where the sharks of this world encircle us and devour our life. He will even remove His hand of protection slightly so that we encounter adverse circumstances from our choices.

We can’t see from our heavenly Father’s vantage point. Seemingly innocuous situations can be set ups by ungodly people to get what they want and leave us worse off. Yet we have a heavenly Father who loves us and desires to guide us to safe living and an abundance of joy. We simply don’t understand how to get to this life unless we acknowledge our Father’s omniscience and our need for Him.

Therefore God sent His son Jesus to teach us all things through His Word. Then, upon His death He provided His Holy Spirit who opens up Scripture as we read in order to teach us how to live and guide us to the safe, abundant life.

“I wish above all things that you may prosper and be in health even as your soul prospers.”(3 John 1:2)

Our soul -which is our mind, will and emotions-will prosper, thrive, and flourish when we learn how to live God’s way. Living our own truths will only lead to a shark attack down the road. God isn’t required to protect us where He has not lead us. Therefore we are at the mercy of God’s grace until His timing runs out. Eventually, because the Lord is a good Father and wishes no one to perish, He allows the enemy to have his way in our lives. This is when all manner of bad and painful things enter our lives. This is akin to God yelling “don’t continue down this path it will cause you so much pain down the road!”

Accepting Christ’s Substitutionary Death

Accepting Christ’s substitutionary death for our sins, will give us a place in heaven when we die. Then, by choosing to give our lives to Christ now and live according to His teachings, we will be protected. When we choose to not follow the Lord completely, we are unprotected.

Those who have given their life to Christ have moral law written on our hearts. We don’t need to be taught to love God and place Him first in our life because we will already understand what a loving and protective Father He is. We won’t need to learn that His Commandments are for our good, we will already understand that Deuteronomy chapter 28 is pure truth.

We will be protected by heeding the voice of God and asking the Holy Spirit to help us live within God’s perfect will. But it is our choice. If God gave us His only Son, won’t He also protect, provide and guide us to every perfect gift? We should have no fear following our Lord’s path.

“He who did not spare his own Son, but gave him up for us all—how will he not also, along with him, graciously give us all things?”(Romans 8:22)

A humble person acknowledges their need for God. Things that look wonderful to us may be shark infested waters in disguise. But followers of Christ have the powerful Holy Spirit as our GPS system, keeping us out of the dangers of life. Initially, we will always be alerted to danger ahead by a gentle nudge. If we do not heed the warning and examine and change our life, God will need to use stronger measures to get our attention. A removal of His divine protection can lead to adverse circumstances that stop us in our tracks. This is a good thing! Then we can ask God where we went off track and we can then make the necessary changes and get back under God’s umbrella of protection.

“If any of you lacks wisdom, you should ask God, who gives generously to all without finding fault, and it will be given to you.”(James 1:5)

God’s way is not random and He is not a killjoy, but a loving Father that is trying His hardest to guide us away from shark infested waters.

Food For Thought,

Lisa

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