This week in Living on the Rock, we are discussing our heavenly Father’s love. Along with verses and verses of Scripture, we asked ourselves:
How has your relationship with your earthly father affected how you see God as your Father?
The Father’s love for us is a key truth that shapes our God view. Maybe this is universal for men and women – I don’t know, I’ve only ever been a women. But as women I think our God view can be unduly influenced by the men in our lives – our fathers, but also other men.
So my question for us this week is this:
Who are you going to believe?
Statistically, among my readers, some of you are dealing with hurt at the hands of men – fathers, husbands, brothers, strangers, dates, friends. Some of us have hurts or disappointments from our mothers or other women as well. Big hurts and little hurts that affect our view of God, our expectation of Him and of our view of ourselves.
We probably all have hurts from a variety of people, things that label us UNLOVED.
Who are you going to believe?
Are we going to continue to let the people in our lives shape our view of God? Or are we child like enough to take God at His Word, and let HIM tell us what He is like?
Some of us felt invisible as children – maybe we feel invisible still. We never felt like a priority. Maybe the people in our lives were neglectful, or maybe they were just busy surviving, dealing with their own pain. So we learned to suck it up and take care of ourselves.
If that’s you, may I share some GOOD NEWS? The message translation of Matthew 10:30 is “HE PAYS ATTENTION TO YOU.”?
So to the invisible one: Can you receive that from the Lord? He pays attention to you.
Who are you going to believe?
Some of us are afraid to ask for what we need. We’d never expect a good father to trick his children or give them a snake when they need bread. But we ACT like God does this. We act like He plays games with us, saying things like “the Holy Spirit hit me up side the head”, or “God pulled the rug right out from under me.” Does our God do that? When we ask for good things, does He give us poison?
But the promise of God’s Word is “ASK me for what you need”. If you’re feeling rejected, if you’re feeling unloved, will you BELIEVE God that you can ask Him to help you feel loved and chosen? ASK for what you need.
Who are you going to believe?
Some of us feel more secure, more lovable, when we’re working hard. We’ve felt tremendous pressure to be “good girls”. Some of us view God as one whose love we earn by behaving, by being sweet. Is this our heavenly Father? The heavenly Father who Scripture says gives his best gifts (the rain and sun, for all you gardeners!) to the good and evil? He loves us because we are HIS, not because we are good little girls!
Who are you going to believe?
Some of us have been treated as worthless. Some of us have been told we are not lovable. Maybe our voices have been ignored, maybe we were not the favored child. We were treated in ways that are just slightly off, or perhaps we were all the way abused or hit in the name of God and “love.” And that is NOT love.
Even if your situation is less extreme – you can’t live long in this world without experiencing rejection, without being labeled “unloved” “unchosen” “unwanted” in some way.
Wherever you fall on the spectrum of having been rejected, unloved, unvalued by people in your life, by your earthly father perhaps, who are you going to believe?
God is not a man that He should lie, or a son of man, that he should change his mind. (Numbers 23:19)
Can you release God – your Heavenly Father – from the sins and mistakes of your earthly father? Can you release Him from the actions of mere men? Can you release your God from the inner expectation or belief that He will treat you the way you’ve been treated by your earthly father, your husband, others who have rejected you?
Who are you going to believe?
Can you hear and receive, DEEP inside you, these truths?
Your Father gives you His VERY BEST.
He is gracious. He is GENEROUS toward you.
He knows what you need, and you can ASK Him for what you need.
He conceived you in LOVE. You were His idea.
He pays attention to you. You have value and worth to Him.
Is that enough for us?
Who are you going to believe?
I’m not foolish enough to miss that for some among us, the voice of rejection and unworthiness is very very loud.
Can we let God’s voice of Father love grow louder and louder, until it drowns out the voices that have spoken rejection and unlove and unworthiness?
Who are you going to believe?
God is not a man that He should lie, or a son of man that he should change His mind. Does He speak and not do what He says? Does He promise and not come through?
I asked everyone doing this study with me to choose a verse from the many we looked at this week to memorized. I had a hard time choosing one myself. Because God’s Father love has been so necessary for me – I NEED to believe these truths – I have already memorized quite a few of these verses. I’ve been walking this road for a while – trying to let God’s FATHER voice speak louder than the story I’d learned to tell myself all these years.
I ended up choosing a verse from Romans 8 about the Holy Spirit testifying with our spirits that we are children of God.
14 For all who are being led by the Spirit of God, these are sons of God. 15 For you have not received a spirit of slavery leading to fear again, but you have received a spirit of adoption as sons by which we cry out, “Abba! Father!” 16 The Spirit Himself testifies with our spirit that we are children of God… (Romans 8:14-16)
Romans 8 teaches that it is the Spirit’s JOB to testify to our Spirit that we are loved, chosen, adopted children of God. So if I’m believing lies, if I’m letting the voices of people on this earth drown out that truth, what is that? Is the Spirit falling down on His job? Where’s the disconnect?
I don’t think the Holy Spirit is falling down on the job – but we have a choice. And I wonder how often we simply can’t or won’t receive His testimony.
When we give in to lies about our worth, we live as if we’re unloved, unwanted – ORPHANS. When we live as if we are fatherless, as if our worth and love-worthiness are dependent on our appearance or behavior, we are CHOOSING the voice of mere men and women over the testimony of the SPIRIT OF GOD.
IF that is us, if we are listening to the voice of our feelings or the (sometimes VERY LOUD) voice of our experiences with men and women here on earth… Then today is a day to REPENT.
Let’s CHANGE OUR MINDS – turn from listening to these lies, and begin to believe the TRUTH.
Renee Davis Meyer 