Originally published Wednesday, 11 November 2015.
Sometimes, I look at my family and think, "I want to give you so much more. I want to love you more. I want to be there for you more."
I have this longing, but then the action seems far from me. I grew up believing that you just work harder, you try harder and you push harder to do the right thing. You simply give your best effort and then God will love you, then you might be good enough, then you might make it through those pearly gates of glory.
But, striving only ends up producing in an overworked blown-out child.
Striving gives us the false belief salvation is on our shoulders and not God's.
Striving pushes the need for love far and the will of self first and foremost.
Amidst all this striving, it is almost impossible to let the love of Christ's sacrifice pour over you? Just think, there is no sitting with working. No relying with striving. No space for grace. It is called captive service.
You serve and do and be for God--or you don't get in!
This makes me think, where is the love?
Even more, no matter how amazing our parents were, no matter how fantastic their love - the plain 'ole fashioned truth is that they can never love us like Jesus did. They have flaws. And because of their inadequacies and flaws, we learn an inadequately flawed love too. We walk receiving, knowing and giving partial love.
So you are no longer a slave, but God's child; and since you are his child,
God has made you also an heir. Gal 4:7
Even God gets this point. This is why he tells us we are not a slave: a captive striver, an excessive worker, a ruled-over peon, an owned tool or a beaten serf. No. God tells us rather, that we sit in the full glory of who he is.
We are fully loved by the only one who created the definition of love. We are God's child.
We get the glorious inheritance that is only stored away for God's own. We are heirs.
We have the same love line as Christ running through us. His DNA is power. We are God's child.
We are secure in what our father wants to bestow on us; our laziness can't push it away. We are heirs.
We are new creations, being reformed into the full image of Jesus Christ. We are God's child.
Now if we are children, then we are heirs--heirs of God and co-heirs with Christ,
if indeed we share in his sufferings in order that we may also share in his glory. Ro. 8:17
May your sufferings not be seen as agony,
but as gifts that confirm your destiny.
May your pain not be run away from,
but held as the ticket that shows how loved you are.
May your agony not be lived in agony,
for it is simply a precursor to the glory that will shine on you.
Why?
Because your whole self is sealed in a way that can never be torn apart. The Spirit lives in you. You can never eliminate his presence or the temple in you, as a child of God.
And you also were included in Christ when you heard the message of truth, the gospel of your salvation. When you believed, you were marked in him with a seal, the promised Holy Spirit" Eph 1:13
The Spirit confirms your belonging.
The Spirit speaks to your very heart.
The Spirit leads you in all truth.
The Spirit himself testifies with our spirit that we are God's children. Ro. 8:16
No matter what turn we make, as a child of God, we are united with the Spirit that confirms our Father's love. It holds us in all love, safety and significance. This eternal kingdom, belonging to "the children", cannot be undone. Or erased. It is finished, on our behalf, by Jesus Christ.
Now, we can walk love. We can be love. Real love. Not from a place of doing, but simply from a place of being. Being a son or daughter of the most high king.
We love because he first loved us. 1 Jo. 4:19
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