FATHER DELIGHTS IN YOU
07/09/24 15:30
Being a father, I know the delight that is to be had in having a son or a daughter. As a grandfather I re-live this again and can’t fail to notice the joy that my granddaughter gives to her parents as they celebrate each development of her personhood. I note this because it’s easy for us to think of ourselves as a pain and that Father does as well. We need to believe that our heavenly Father takes a similar delight in us as persons growing into the fullness of our selves.
THE ESSENCE OF FATHER
“In the Gospel God does not just appear to us to be Father, Son and Holy Spirit, for he really is Father, Son and Holy Spirit in himself, and reveals himself as such. ‘Our believing apprehension of Father, Son and Spirit, is not in contact with appearances only, but with reality. If God shines through Christ to our believing apprehension, then by way of this historic medium we see into the Divine Nature’ The economic Trinity and the ontological Trinity are not to be separated from one.” (1) This is to say that the I AM of God is the same in His action as in His Being.
TO SEE JESUS IS TO SEE GOD
Father longs for our fellowship. The cross happened because Father delights in us, enjoys our company and wants to be all that we can be as individuals and daughters/sons. There are many forbidding views of God. Not a few sour representations such as ‘we are not amused.’ Some of these views lead to a dulled Christian life. Others to religious abuse in the name of God.
PERVERSE IMAGININGS
There are Christian and non-Christian cultures that that equate God with colourlessness, dullness and inhibition. The effect of a baptism into the culture of the knowledge of good and evil can be that Father is seen as anti-life. Which is one reason why vested interests got angry enough to murder life when Life To The Full appeared as Jesus Christ. Make no mistake. Negativism in Christianity or politics has its source in the spirit of anti-life/anti-christ.
SHARING THE GOODNESS OF LIFE WITH US
Baxter Kruger puts the God of love and life clearly when he writes, “It was not the Fall of Adam, therefore, that set God’s agenda; it was the decision to share the great dance with us through Jesus. Adam’s plunge certainly threatened God’s dreams for us, but that threat had been anticipated and already strategically overcome in the predestination of the incarnation. Jesus Christ did not become human to fix the fall; he became human to accomplish the eternal purpose of our adoption, and in order to bring our adoption to pass, the Fall had to be called to a halt and undone….Jesus is not a footnote to Adam and his Fall; the Fall, and indeed creation itself, is a footnote to the purpose of God in Jesus Christ.” ― C. Baxter Kruger.
You are entirely acceptable in Christ. You belong. God desires your company. God is fun. God is love of life. God longs for fellowship with you and with us.
(1) Torrance, Thomas F.. The Christian Doctrine of God, One Being Three Persons (T&T Clark Cornerstones) (p. 7). Bloomsbury Publishing. Kindle Edition.
THE ESSENCE OF FATHER
“In the Gospel God does not just appear to us to be Father, Son and Holy Spirit, for he really is Father, Son and Holy Spirit in himself, and reveals himself as such. ‘Our believing apprehension of Father, Son and Spirit, is not in contact with appearances only, but with reality. If God shines through Christ to our believing apprehension, then by way of this historic medium we see into the Divine Nature’ The economic Trinity and the ontological Trinity are not to be separated from one.” (1) This is to say that the I AM of God is the same in His action as in His Being.
TO SEE JESUS IS TO SEE GOD
Father longs for our fellowship. The cross happened because Father delights in us, enjoys our company and wants to be all that we can be as individuals and daughters/sons. There are many forbidding views of God. Not a few sour representations such as ‘we are not amused.’ Some of these views lead to a dulled Christian life. Others to religious abuse in the name of God.
PERVERSE IMAGININGS
There are Christian and non-Christian cultures that that equate God with colourlessness, dullness and inhibition. The effect of a baptism into the culture of the knowledge of good and evil can be that Father is seen as anti-life. Which is one reason why vested interests got angry enough to murder life when Life To The Full appeared as Jesus Christ. Make no mistake. Negativism in Christianity or politics has its source in the spirit of anti-life/anti-christ.
SHARING THE GOODNESS OF LIFE WITH US
Baxter Kruger puts the God of love and life clearly when he writes, “It was not the Fall of Adam, therefore, that set God’s agenda; it was the decision to share the great dance with us through Jesus. Adam’s plunge certainly threatened God’s dreams for us, but that threat had been anticipated and already strategically overcome in the predestination of the incarnation. Jesus Christ did not become human to fix the fall; he became human to accomplish the eternal purpose of our adoption, and in order to bring our adoption to pass, the Fall had to be called to a halt and undone….Jesus is not a footnote to Adam and his Fall; the Fall, and indeed creation itself, is a footnote to the purpose of God in Jesus Christ.” ― C. Baxter Kruger.
You are entirely acceptable in Christ. You belong. God desires your company. God is fun. God is love of life. God longs for fellowship with you and with us.
(1) Torrance, Thomas F.. The Christian Doctrine of God, One Being Three Persons (T&T Clark Cornerstones) (p. 7). Bloomsbury Publishing. Kindle Edition.
