It’s the beginning of another week and yes – the year is marching on. All the things we have to do to earn a living and just live life – so easy to be focussed on the doing that we forget about the being.

We’re called human beings, not human doings – although judging from the way that many people live their lives, you could be forgiven for getting the two mixed up.

One of the reasons I love getting up really early in the morning – is that it’s so quiet and still. In the summer months, I open the door to my study and sit and peck away at the computer preparing these programs.

I love the stillness. I love just stopping and breathing in the fresh, cool air of the morning and thanking God for being alive and the sweetness of the air in my lungs. A new day, fresh challenges – things to do of course.

But being – knowing God, knowing how wonderful it is to be alive and to have another day to know Him and serve Him and love Him – that is an awesome thing. Being is the place where I draw my strength for doing. As Paul the Apostle wrote almost 2 thousand years ago – in Him we live and move and have our being. And that’s why last week and again this week on the program we’re taking a look at the incredible Father heart of God! Just stopping amidst all the noise and clamour of life – just to be. Just to hear the strong, gentle heartbeat of God. To hear it for ourselves.

And one of the things that I hear when I hear the heart of God beating, is the generosity of God. You know – I’m a dad and I can tell you this – God made dads – He hardwired us – to want to bless our children.

I can’t help myself. I want to see my kids blessed. Not that I’m a perfect father every day. I’m not. It’s not that I don’t get cranky or grumpy sometimes. I do. But we dads – 99.9% of us want to bless our kids.

And you see – it’s the nature of fatherhood that God’s tapping into when He reveals Himself to us as God the Father. Jesus – radically, heretically in the eyes of many – called God His father – and the Word He used – Abba – literally means – Dad.

To Jesus God = DAD. Strong and loving – and hardwired to bless His children. I want to read to you this beautiful passage – it was Jesus explaining how Dad is wired, how God the Dad wants to bless us. Have a listen and as you pause, let His words sink deep into your heart:

“Ask, and it will be given you; search, and you will find; knock, and the door will be opened for you. For everyone who asks receives, and everyone who searches finds, and for everyone who knocks, the door will be opened. Is there anyone among you who, if your child asks for bread, will give a stone? Or if the child asks for a fish, will give a snake? If you then, who are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father in heaven give good things to those who ask him! (Matthew 7:7-11)

Don’t you love it? Jesus is directly reaching into our understanding of what a good parent is. He’s directly reaching into our parental understanding of the fact that we love to bless our children.

I mean – think about being a parent. It’s years of hard grind. The sleepless nights. A friend of mine in South Africa – Jonathan – his little baby is just a few weeks old. And I don’t know if you use the technology but he’s one of my friends on Skype – so that we can call each other over the internet and talk.

And one of the things that the Skype application lets you do is have a little mood message – Jonathan’s one of those people who regularly updates his mood message and the week that I prepared this program – his mood message said “No one told me the 6^th week would be so rough! Fortunately it’s week 7 now”. Anyone who’s had babies knows what he’s talking about.

And then they grow up and we have to teach them over and over and over and over and over again. No. Don’t do that. No – don’t rub your food in your hair. Over and over.

And then before long – they’re teenagers and fortunately by then they know it all. And then they become adults – by which time we parents are pretty well bankrupt from bringing them up and we’re old and grey.

Bringing up children is an incredibly tough gig – and yet, all along, what we really want to do is to bless them. When you think about it that way, this desire to bless our children is pretty much counterintuitive isn’t it?!

But Jesus knows it’s in us – and so in teaching us what God’s like – He appeals to our understanding of this hardwired passion of blessing and generosity we have towards our children. 

Is there anyone among you who, if your child asks for bread, will give a stone? Or if the child asks for a fish, will give a snake? (Matthew 7:9-10)

And then, then He steps this parental passion of blessing and generosity up a huge notch – from a weak and imperfect and fallible parent to a perfect and mighty God.

If you then, who are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father in heaven give good things to those who ask him! (Matthew 7:11)

So – what’s Jesus saying here? God is just like us only a gazillion times better. God is generous. God has a passion to bless His children, just the way you do, only much, much better. And we discover God’s abundant generosity over and over and over again in His Word.

Ephesians 1:3 He’s already blessed us with every spiritual blessing in heavenly places

Ephesians 1:7,8 – we discover that He’s lavished His grace on us – with all wisdom and insight – picture there is of overflowing abundance … completely overflowing. More than enough.

“Give, and it will be given to you. A good measure, pressed down, shaken together, running over, will be put into your lap; for the measure you give will be the measure you get back.” (Luke 6:38)

“The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy. I came that they may have life, and have it abundantly.” (John 10:10) 

And those are just a few. God is a God of incredible generosity.

To Abraham He said: I will make you exceedingly fruitful. (Genesis 17:6).

My friend, sometimes we look around and it’s hard to see the generosity of God. That’s because we’re racing around so busy – too busy to notice it. But when we get still before God – in the cool of the morning, completely alone with Him – and just breathe in the sweet air that He’s given us – and start to read His Word for what it is – start to see Him for who He is – what we discover is a God of great generosity.

God is generous towards His children. And sometimes when the going gets a bit tough – our response is to pedal harder and harder. And we become more and more exhausted. We worry, we fret, we carry on.

Instead of placing our faith in God the Dad – our Father in Heaven who’s very nature is to be exceedingly generous towards us – like any father to help us with the things we’re struggling with, to see us grow and developed and be blessed.

If you then, who are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father in heaven give good things to those who ask him! (Matthew 7:11)

May those words warm your heart today. May they just rest inside you and may the Spirit of God make them a part of who you are. Because when we take God’s Word in – when we feed on it… well, you know the saying: we are what we eat.

And God the Dad – is the most generous and gracious dad there is.

One of the things that many men find a bit difficult to show – is affection. Many of us grew up with fathers who didn’t show much affection.

And so – well, you know how it is – it’s what we learned. We imagine somehow that being a man, we’re meant to be strong and part of that strength is not to show any affection. Men aren’t supposed to cry. Men aren’t supposed to be this or do that. Now – hopefully, that’s changing a bit. But you know what I mean.

Often for a man – it’s difficult to show affection. But children – children need affection about as much as they need mother’s milk. Affection is what tells them that they’re safe and they’re secure and they’re loved.

It’s when children are shown affection that they grow up with a healthy sense of self, with a sense of confidence. That’s why God puts kids into families. So that we’ll love them and nurture them and keep them safe.

That’s why kids need hugs. It’s why they need words of encouragement. It’s why they need to be told – yes, you can do this. Yes you’re beautiful. Yes – you’re good. God gave kids parents for us to do that – and a huge, huge part of this safe, loving, nurturing family environment that kids are supposed to grow up in – is affection. And when they don’t get that – and many don’t – the effects on their lives are devastating.

So – here’s the question – let me ask you this – if God is indeed a father, as Jesus told us He is – does He show us affection – and if so, HOW?

A man by the name of Barry Adams wrote a book called Father’s Love Letter – it’s just a brilliant book, and like most brilliant books – it’s quite short – about 120 odd pages. 

And what he does, is that he goes through God’s Word and pulls out the wonderful, warm and intimate things that God says about us – you and me, how God feels about us, how He sees us – and puts them all together in this one book.

In that book, He takes us to Psalm 139 – where God says …

You may not know me, but I know everything about you. I know when you sit down and when you rise up. I’m familiar with all your ways.

Now, we’re going to talk a little bit more about that another day. But the point is that God’s our Dad. He was the one that knit us together in our mother’s womb. He was the one that decided the incredibly complex combination of genes and DNA to make us who we are. He was the one that chose every day of our life for us.

He is the most amazing Father and His great and mighty Father’s heart beats for us – and when we ache, He aches for us, and when we laugh, He laughs with us.

And you see that right throughout His love letter to us – this thing they call – the Bible. I just want to pick out a small handful of the things that He says to us in that Love Letter – because my hunch is that there are a few of us today who need to know – who need to know beyond any shadow of a doubt that God our dad wants to put His arms around us and to lavish His affection on us.

You know – you know when I need God’s affection more than any other time – when I’ve taken a hit, when I’m down low, when I’m struggling or tired or rejected. I mean – think about it – when a child falls over and skins its knee – the thing it needs most right at that moment is a mother or a father to throw their arms around the child and hold him or her close and whisper comforting words in their ears.

When a young child runs in a race at school or they try their hardest in the art competition – and they miss out on a prize and their lip quivers and the tears well up in their eyes. Right at that moment, they need a parent to step in and show them affection – both in word and in deed.

Affection at other times – well, it’s really nice. I love it when my wife gives me a kiss, or she cuddles me and tells me that she loves me. Love it. But it’s when I’ve been through some disappointment, or I’m tired or dejected – that’s when the soothing balm of her affection works its greatest healing in me.

Right? Well – have a listen to the affection that God has for us in those times.

Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of mercies and the God of all consolation, who consoles us in all our affliction, so that we may be able to console those who are in any affliction with the consolation with which we ourselves are consoled by God. (2 Corinthians 1:3-4)

Do you see that – God Himself pulls alongside us in our affliction – in those times when we need Him. At that time – we actually need to experience His love. We need to experience His Presence. Some people shy away from that – this notion that religion is something you understand with your head alone – and that anything experiential isn’t true Christianity.

Rubbish – the Bible is full – full to overflowing with God’s express desire to be there for is in our experience, so that when we need His affection most, we can have it.

Jesus – Jesus just before He’s about to be crucified says to His disciples – you know, I’m going to send you another comforter another one just like me to be with you forever (John 14:15). And He goes on to say …

“I will not leave you orphaned; I am coming to you. In a little while the world will no longer see me, but you will see me; because I live, you also will live. On that day you will know that I am in my Father, and you in me, and I in you. (John 14:18-20) 

Now the point of saying that is that He’s about to be crucified and they are going to fear for their lives these disciples and then for a little while they’ll see Him again when he’s risen – but once He ascends into heaven, they won’t see Him. They’ve been with Him 3 ½ years now – seen His miracles, heard His amazing wisdom, experienced His strength. And in a little while He’ll be gone – and so He says to them – I will not leave you orphaned. I will not leave you as little children without a parent to comfort you and guide you and teach you and keep you safe. I am sending another comforter just like me.

The Holy Spirit to be with you through all your trials and tribulations.

The very Presence of God in you – so that you can know and experience the affection, the comfort, the intimacy of God Himself in your day to day life. In fact, so important is this, that a little later Jesus actually says to them –

you know something, it’s good that I’m going away for if I didn’t go, I wouldn’t be able to send you this new comforter. (John 16:7)

In other words, this new comforter – the Holy Spirit – is even better than having me around.

Let that sink in! God’s intimacy and affection through His Presence in us as we believe in Jesus His Son – is actually better than having Jesus here in the flesh. Why?

Because the Spirit of God is with each believer every minute of every day. Every step. Every trial. Every skinned knee. Every loss and disappointment. The Spirit of God – the Comforter just like Jesus Himself – is with us. And when we know that – and when we put our trust in this Comforter – then we can and will experience the affection of Father God.

Just think of this amazing provision that He’s made for us – His Comforter, His Spirit – dwelling in us when we accept Jesus as our Lord and Saviour. My friend – when we put our trust in what God says – then, then we can experience the very Presence of God. We can experience His affection, His comfort, His arms around us, His words of assurance.

That’s God. That’s who He is. God the Dad. God the Comforter.

I remember as a child – that my parents lavished their attention on me. It wasn’t always welcome of course. As kids, we want to run off in our own direction whenever it suits us. Part of growing up is coming to grips with boundaries and discipline.

Had an interesting discussion with a friend of mine who works as a relief teacher in some of the wealthiest private schools in Australia. Many of the children are picked up and dropped off by chauffeurs.

These children have everything that money can buy. The latest toys and gadgets. More disposable income by way of pocket money than many families have to live off in a week in the developing world. And on top of that, they live in fantastic houses with amazing views and more rooms than anyone could ever need.

I remember her telling me the story – she said “It would blow your mind”. But – there’s inevitably a but – “but.” she said – “the one thing that many, many of them don’t have is their parents’ attention. They come home to empty homes. They go to their rooms. They chat with their friends online.”

But they hardly see their parents. In fact, they may as well be orphans. And she told me of the deep pain in these children’s hearts. They have everything, yet in their heart of hearts, they’d trade it all in for some attention from their parents.

How incredibly sad that is. And you know something – if God holds Himself out to be our Father – then unless He gives us His attention – He’s not better than the wealthy parents of those kids I’ve just been telling you about.

What’s your image of God?! I mean if He is God – and if He did create the whole universe and if He does hold all things together then He’s one busy God.

As well as the 6.75 billion people alive on planet earth today, He’s got a trillion, trillion stars to worry about. Not to mention those people who’ve died and gone to be with Him. And because we’re so often too busy to make time for God – be honest, many people are – it’s easy to start getting this idea that God is by far too busy to worry about the little ups and downs of our lives.

I have met so many people, who don’t take their needs to God in prayer, because they’re carrying his picture of God around in their heads that says – well, you know – He couldn’t be bothered with that. He’d be too busy and my need is too trivial.

But let me take you back to being a kid for a while. Do you remember the little disappointments – you know, when the other kids at school perhaps made fun of you. Or your pet caterpillar died. Or your favourite toy broke. Looking back on those now as an adult – we smile and see how trivial those things were in the scheme of things.

But when we were going through them – they were everything. They were the most important thing in our little world. I was devastated when my first goldfish died. I was devastated when the other kids poked fun at me because I couldn’t run as fast as them. And on the flip side, when we’re children – we need our parents to participate in our joys and triumphs. We need them to celebrate our celebrations with us. That’s why kids birthdays are so important. That’s why praising children is so important. Children need their parents’ attention.

And actually, actually when we grow up – it’s the same thing. The person who sneered at us and belittled us at the office today. The difficulties and the triumphs of life – we need someone to share those with us, don’t we?

But does God notice? Does God share in those little things with us … or is He too busy, not really interested. Come on – in your life – what’s the answer to that question?!

Jesus was talking to people about their fears and concerns one day. You know – the people whose opinions we value, the people who seem to have the power of life and death over and our lives. And He was making the point that perhaps, just perhaps – we’re focussing on the wrong people.

Have a listen…

“A disciple is not above the teacher, nor a slave above the master; it is enough for the disciple to be like the teacher, and the slave like the master. If they have called the master of the house Beelzebub, how much more will they malign those of his household! 

“So have no fear of them; for nothing is covered up that will not be uncovered, and nothing secret that will not become known. What I say to you in the dark, tell in the light; and what you hear whispered, proclaim from the housetops. Do not fear those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul; rather fear him who can destroy both soul and body in hell. (Matthew 10:24-28)

So – Jesus is saying to us – look, all these people who seem to be powerful today, who laugh at you for believing in Jesus, who poke fun at you and malign God’s people – stop worrying about them. One day. One day their deeds will be uncovered, one day, they’ll get their comeuppance.

The one that you really need to get focused on is God – because He has the eternal power of life and death over you. But then in a sharp twist – something that Jesus often did when He was speaking – He’d hit people with the completely unexpected – tell them what God’s really like. And this is what He says – straight on from talking about this God that can destroy your body and soul in hell…

Are not two sparrows sold for a penny? Yet not one of them will fall to the ground apart from your Father. And even the hairs of your head are all counted. So do not be afraid; you are of more value than many sparrows. (Matthew 10:29-31)

There it is – the attention that God pays to us – we’re so busy focussing on all these people who don’t matter, and all the time, God’s eye is on us. In many parts of the world, sparrows are a pest – they’re in plague proportions. So not only are they worthless, they’re worse than worthless. When it comes to the animal kingdom, they’re quite a way down the pecking order. That’s why Jesus chose them for this example. 

And He tells us that when one of them falls out of the sky – imagine this little sparrow flying along and all of a sudden he has a heart attach and plummets into the dirt – God notices that. Nothing escapes His attention.

And how much more are you worth in His sight? Infinitely more. And we delude ourselves into thinking that God doesn’t notice the little things in our lives. He doesn’t pay attention to our tumbles and our triumphs? Get out of here – Jesus is saying. That thinking completely misses the point.

Get your focus off people and get it onto God and you will see that He doesn’t miss a thing! Not a thing! In fact, just in case you don’t get it – how many hairs do you have on your head? Well have you counted them? No? 

Well God has. God knows. He can tell you at any instant – how many hairs you have on your head. That’s how much He is into the detail of your life. That’s how much this God who created all the universe lavishes His attention on you. 

That’s what Jesus is saying here folks – to you and to me! When we stop long enough to hear His heart beat for ourselves – what we discover is a God of such incredible power a God above all on the one hand, but a God who is closer to us than the deepest secret of our hearts.

We need never, ever be afraid to take anything and everything to Him – however big or however small – to chat, to pray to ask for help and wisdom. He’s an amazing God – no job too big, no job too small.

Down to the very last hair that’s numbered on our heads. That’s God. 

Have you ever done something dumb – I mean really dumb. Perhaps you’ve lied or cheated or stolen. Perhaps you’ve stabbed someone in the back. Perhaps you’ve hurt someone you love beyond measure. Perhaps you’ve…

The list goes on doesn’t it? And here’s the thing – we all have things in our pasts that we’re not proud of. Things that – If there was some way – we’d wind back and undo. We all have.

Problem is – you can’t wind them back. You can’t undo them. And what’s happened as a result of our stupidity and our wrong and our selfishness – is that relationships are broken. I wonder whether there is a single person alive on this planet who hasn’t done something to contribute to the breakdown of a relationship. I very much doubt it.

And when those relationships are broken – what happens is that you or I are rejected by the other person. We failed someone or we hurt someone and so – they’ve rejected us. They’ve thrown us on the scrap heap as it were. Now – quite probably others have picked us up off that scrap heap and we get on with our lives… but when it comes to that one person that one relationship – we’re on the scrap heap.

And this reality shapes our expectation that when we fail badly – the natural consequence of that is that we’re rejected. We’re thrown, as it were – onto the relationship scrap heap.

And in a world that more and more values those who succeed – as measured against a worldly template of success – the more and more those who fail to succeed are rejected. That’s our expectation with people … and sadly, it’s an expectation that for many translates into their relationship with God.

Let me ask you – when you fail – when you turn against God – when you do things that you know are wrong in His sight – what’s your expectation? In your heart of hearts – what do you expect God to do with you?

We’ve talked about this earlier this week – the difference between knowing the theory and living it out in practice. Many people know the theory that when we fail God – that’s what sin is – when we do that, and if we believe in this Jesus who died to pay for that sin again and rose from the dead to give us eternal life – if we believe in this Jesus then we can go to God and receive His forgiveness.

Many, many people know that. Problem is though, we’ve been so conditioned by the world’s approach – if you succeed, you’re accepted and if you fail you’re rejected – a bit simplistic perhaps, but accurate nevertheless, that we just can’t bring ourselves to put the theory into practice.

We can’t imagine for one minute – that given the things that we’ve been into – God could ever forgive us completely – that once we believe in Jesus, His acceptance is absolutely unconditional.

But – this ain’t just theory. This is the truth. It’s something that God would have us believe – absolutely, wholeheartedly, completely.

Perhaps you may have heard me speak about it once or twice before – but Jesus told a story – a specific story, a parable, to try to help us get this truth in our heads. Because as it turns out, people had exactly the same problem believing in the unconditional acceptance of God back in the 1^st Century, as they do here at the beginning of the 21^st Century. Have a listen. It’s the story of the Prodigal Son.

Then Jesus said, “There was a man who had two sons. The younger of them said to his father, ‘Father, give me the share of the property that will belong to me.’ So he divided his property between them. A few days later the younger son gathered all he had and travelled to a distant country, and there he squandered his property in dissolute living. 

When he had spent everything, a severe famine took place throughout that country, and he began to be in need. So he went and hired himself out to one of the citizens of that country, who sent him to his fields to feed the pigs. He would gladly have filled himself with the pods that the pigs were eating; and no one gave him anything. But when he came to himself he said, ‘How many of my father’s hired hands have bread enough and to spare, but here I am dying of hunger! 

I will get up and go to my father, and I will say to him, “Father, I have sinned against heaven and before you; I am no longer worthy to be called your son; treat me like one of your hired hands.” ’ So he set off and went to his father. But while he was still far off, his father saw him and was filled with compassion; he ran and put his arms around him and kissed him. 

Then the son said to him, ‘Father, I have sinned against heaven and before you; I am no longer worthy to be called your son.’ But the father said to his slaves, ‘Quickly, bring out a robe—the best one—and put it on him; put a ring on his finger and sandals on his feet. And get the fatted calf and kill it, and let us eat and celebrate; for this son of mine was dead and is alive again; he was lost and is found!’ And they began to celebrate. 

“Now his elder son was in the field; and when he came and approached the house, he heard music and dancing. He called one of the slaves and asked what was going on. He replied, ‘Your brother has come, and your father has killed the fatted calf, because he has got him back safe and sound.’ 

Then he became angry and refused to go in. His father came out and began to plead with him. But he answered his father, ‘Listen! For all these years I have been working like a slave for you, and I have never disobeyed your command; yet you have never given me even a young goat so that I might celebrate with my friends. But when this son of yours came back, who has devoured your property with prostitutes, you killed the fatted calf for him!’ 

Then the father said to him, ‘Son, you are always with me, and all that is mine is yours. But we had to celebrate and rejoice, because this brother of yours was dead and has come to life; he was lost and has been found.’” Luke 15:11-32)

What that young son did was foolish. I’ve been there. You’ve been there. And he turned back to his father not out of some great sense of right or wrong, but because he was starving.

And his dad – dad was waiting for him out by the letterbox and instead of admonishing him or giving him a lecture – he threw his arms around him, put a robe on him, the family ring, sandals for his feet and threw a party. Now – the other son – the other son was right. It wasn’t fair. But there’s nothing fair about the mercy and the grace of God. It’s completely unfair. That’s because it springs out of the incredible father heart of God. A heart for you and a heart for me. 

The bit that really gets me though about this story is Dad standing at the letterbox every day – not knowing when his son would come back – not even knowing whether he’d ever see his boy again. And then when he glimpses him off in the distance running towards him, greeting him lavishing all that he had left on this son.

Why? Because of His Father’s heart. Had the lad done wrong – absolutely? Had it cost the father? Dearly! But none of that mattered to him – because of the overwhelming joy of a father who’d lost his son and now had him back.

And that joy comes out of the unconditional acceptance of the Father’s Heart. This boy is my child – no matter what he does, no matter how much it hurts or costs – he was and is and forever will be my son! That’s it. And on that basis – that basis alone – without any requirement to do good, to repay his father for the wrongs – Dad not only has him back, but throws a shindig of a celebration!

My friend that is the exact picture of our Father’s heart towards us. The moment – the instant – we trust our lives into His hands, the moment we accept that Jesus paid for every sin, every blunder, every diabolical, prodigal act for which we deserve the punishment – then God’s acceptance of us when we turn back to Him is absolutely unconditional. No ifs. No buts. No performance requirements.

All we need do is turn around and start walking back in God’s direction – and we can be assured you and I – that God the Dad is waiting out by the letterbox, craning His neck. And the moment we come into view – trudging heavily back to Him – He’s out there throwing His arms around.

Why else – why else would Jesus paint a picture like this?

Any dad worth his salt has hopes and dreams not just for his own life, but for the lives of His children. Some parents try to live out their own hopes and dreams through their children. That’s not right.

You know – the man who wanted to be a doctor but never made it trying to force one of his children to become a doctor. That’s not right.

I remember my father saying to me when I was at that point of choosing a career – Son, I don’t care what you chose to become – a street sweeper or a university professor – I’ll back whatever you choose. But what I do expect is that whatever you choose – that you do it to the best of your abilities.

So – of course, we want the best for our children’s futures. We somehow hope that the investment that we’ve put in them thus far will start paying dividends as they head out of those often difficult teenage years into adulthood. We hope that the standard and the morals and the behaviours we’ve modelled and distilled in our children since they were little, will cut in somehow.

We hope that they’ll have a great life, find the right husband or wife, have their own children, fulfil their dreams. Don’t we?

Well – if God is our Father – I mean, if He really is – why wouldn’t He have the same hopes and dreams for us, for our lives – and not just here on earth, but for all eternity. Why wouldn’t God’s dreams be like any father’s dreams for His children?

Well – turns out that God’s dreams are like any other father’s in one sense, but not in another. Of course – of course God’s our Dad and of course He believes in us and hopes the best for us. Psalm 139 He tells us every day of our lives was written down in His book before any of them as yet existed.

And in 1 Corinthians 13 – He tells us that love bears all things, believes all things and hopes all things. And that love never comes to an end.

Since God is love – since God is where we get our whole notion of love from – then His love for us is just like that – perfect in every way.

God our Dad looks at us and He believes in us – He made us after all. He handcrafted us for the plans and purposes that He has for our lives.

And that – that’s where God’s hopes differ from your average dad’s hopes for His children. Because He made us – He knows exactly how He made us – for different purposes and functions. We can see that as we look around – people are different – they have different motivations and gifts and abilities.

But it’s not just that He made us different it’s that He wrote down every day of our lives in His book before any of them as yet existed. In other words – He made us for a purpose. You’ll often hear me say this – because it’s so important. Who we are and the plan God has for our lives – what we’re meant to do with our lives – those two the “who” and the “what” go hand in hand.

I as a father invest in my children and then release them into the world and I hope for the best for them – I help them where they go, but by and large the choices they make are theirs and totally out of my control.

And God creates you and me and releases us into this world – and He knows the choices we make at some point, some point, are going to involve us rejecting Him. And this – this is where God does something an ordinary dad can’t do. God makes provision for that. God the Dad knows we’re going to reject Him at some point and go astray – in a way that deserves an eternal punishment, so – He makes provision for that at great cost to Himself. Have a listen:

What then are we to say about these things? If God is for us, who is against us? He who did not withhold his own Son, but gave him up for all of us, will he not with him also give us everything else? (Romans 8:31–32)

In other words – God’s on our side. He demonstrates that by sending His beloved Son – Jesus – by giving Him up to death on a cross, so that we can be reconciled back to Him.

All this is from God, who reconciled us to himself through Christ, and has given us the ministry of reconciliation; that is, in Christ God was reconciling the world to himself, not counting their trespasses against them, and entrusting the message of reconciliation to us. (2 Corinthians 5:18–19) 

It’s in Jesus that we discover how much our Dad loves us. The death of Jesus is the ultimate expression of a Father’s love for His children:

“For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him may not perish but may have eternal life.”(John 3:16)

I’m not sure whether you’re a parent or not – but if you care, can you imagine, can you even begin to imagine how hard it would be to give up your child, to be nailed onto a cross, to pay for the crimes of another person? Can you imagine?

But God the Dad did – because He has a plan for our lives, a plan for His best and we often – inevitably, inexorably stray away from that plan. And Jesus is the way back – the way back to Dad – through Him we have forgiveness, through Him we’re reconciled back to Dad. One of His disciples, just before He was crucified protested – we don’t know the way to where you’re going – have a listen:

 Thomas said to him, “Lord, we do not know where you are going. How can we know the way?” Jesus said to him, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me. If you know me, you will know my Father also. From now on you do know him and have seen him.” (John 14:5–7)

Putting our faith in Jesus – that’s the way back to Dad – it’s the only way back to Dad – and Dad opened that door – despite our rebellion, despite the fact that when He set us free into this world with a great plan for our lives we wandered away from that plan, despite the fact that we turned our backs on Him – Because He’s our Dad, because His love bears all things, hopes all things and believes all things – because He sees the potential in you and me, because His great and mighty Father’s heart aches to spend an eternity with you and with me – He offers up the one thing that’s more previous to Him than anything else … His one and only Son – to suffer, to die a brutal death – in order to open up a way back to Him.

A way that meets the need for justice – because God is just and our rebellion does demand punishment. But a way that avoids the punishment we deserve, by putting it on the shoulders of His Son.

So great is Dad’s love for us – for you and for me – that He sent us His one and only Son to die for us, in our place – so that whoever – whoever puts their faith in this Jesus will not perish in an eternal inferno, but will have life eternal in the very Presence of God.

That’s the hope in Dad’s heart for you and me – but the decision, the decision to respond, the decision to put our trust in this Jesus, the decision to take the way back – that decision is ours. Completely ours.

The cry of God’s heart – read it throughout the Bible from almost the beginning to the end – is this: I will be your God and you, you will be my people. That’s the cry of the incredible Father heart of God. And in and through Jesus – He’s done everything that’s needed to make that happen.

All we have to do – is to accept His free gift of eternal life. To accept the offer of an eternity with Him. To accept Jesus Christ as our Lord and Saviour. Because He is the way back. The only way back.