What is God’s Heart for You?

1 John 4:8-15 (Amplified)
He who does not love has not become acquainted with God [does not and never did know Him], for God is love. 9In this the love of God was made manifest (displayed) where we are concerned: in that God sent His Son, the only begotten or unique [Son], into the world so that we might live through Him. 10In this is love: not that we loved God, but that He loved us and sent His Son to be the propitiation (the atoning sacrifice) for our sins. 11Beloved, if God loved us so [very much], we also ought to love one another.
12No man has at any time [yet] seen God. But if we love one another, God abides (lives and remains) in us and His love (that love which is essentially His) is brought to completion (to its full maturity, runs its full course, is perfected) in us! 13By this we come to know (perceive, recognize, and understand) that we abide (live and remain) in Him and He in us: because He has given (imparted) to us of His [Holy] Spirit. 14And [besides] we ourselves have seen (have deliberately and steadfastly contemplated) and bear witness that the Father has sent the Son [as the] Savior of the world. 15Anyone who confesses (acknowledges, owns) that Jesus is the Son of God, God abides (lives, makes His home) in him and he [abides, lives, makes his home] in God.

What is God’s Heart for You?

God’s heart is and ever has been that He loves you with a love so massive it defies comprehension. Until we fully embrace and come into the love of the Father for us, we can’t really know Him, for His identity is LOVE. Which of us would willing lay down our life for another, much less give our only son to die for someone else. It was through this demonstration of love that the Father and the Son corporately as one gave their life for the very humanity that had become their enemies; despising, rejecting and living in rebellion and opposition to God. Romans 5:6-11 says, “You see, at just the right time, when we were still powerless, Christ died for the ungodly. 7Very rarely will anyone die for a righteous man, though for a good man someone might possibly dare to die. 8But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.
9Since we have now been justified by his blood, how much more shall we be saved from God’s wrath through him! 10For if, when we were God’s enemies, we were reconciled to him through the death of his Son, how much more, having been reconciled, shall we be saved through his life! 11Not only is this so, but we also rejoice in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have now received reconciliation.” That is God’s heart for you!
Now what is our heart for God? 1 John 4:15 says, “Anyone who confesses (acknowledges, owns) that Jesus is the Son of God, God abides (lives, makes His home) in him and he [abides, lives, makes his home] in God.” God’s heart for us has so consumed us with His love that we embrace the gift of His love by our faith in Christ. His Holy Spirit comes into our heart to bear witness that we now belong to Him and the evidence of His presence is that we continually grow in His nature, which is love. After all, verses 16 and 17 go on to tell us, “And we know (understand, recognize, are conscious of, by observation and by experience) and believe (adhere to and put faith in and rely on) the love God cherishes for us. God is love, and he who dwells and continues in love dwells and continues in God, and God dwells and continues in him. 17In this [union and communion with Him] love is brought to completion and attains perfection with us, that we may have confidence for the day of judgment [with assurance and boldness to face Him], because as He is, so are we in this world.”
What is He? He is love! What are we? His love exemplified through word and deed.
The question we all must ask ourselves is when others see me do they see God’s love, because I am His expression of love to others. If the answer isn’t positive then I must ask myself, “Am I so abiding in His love that it can’t help but show up through me? If we try and just do God’s love then it will always fall short, because it is out of conditional human effort and ability, but if we can become so lost in Him, that we just start to become like the One we worship and abide in then it will it come out of our being and not our doing.
The law of the kingdom of God is contained in this one word LOVE. When LOVE is what rules our hearts, our desires, our motives and our actions then God’s kingdom has come in us. When God’s love rules over all that we do then there are no limitations on what He can manifest through us in His power and glory, because it is all of Him and for Him. This is the heart of God for us and this is the kingdom we were called to live into and out of.

Blessings,
#kent

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Knowing the Father is the Expression of Jesus

John 14:6-7 Jesus answered, “I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me. 7If you really knew me, you would know my Father as well. From now on, you do know him and have seen him.”

Knowing the Father is the Expression of Jesus

This is a passage of scripture that is familiar to many of us. As the Father droped it into my spirit this morning I sensed that He was showing me that God the Father is Spirit. We so often don’t fully understand Him or comprehend His ways, but He has never revealed Himself more clearly than He did through the life of Jesus. Jesus is not only the way, the truth and the life; He is the open door to look into Father’s heart. When we observe and study the life of Jesus we see and understand that He was the open conduit of the Father’s heart and love for us. Jesus was the Father’s human expression to touch and communicate with us on the level of our understanding and comprehension. I’ll never forget an illustration I heard many years ago that related it like this. There was once a man looking through his window and observing the birds on a bitter cold, wintry, snowy day. The birds were gathered on his patio foraging through the snow for some morsel to eat. The man’s heart was moved with compassion and he thought if only I could invite them into my warm home and then feed them and warm them till the storm is past. He knew that if he tried to present himself as he was and opened the door he would only frighten the birds and they would fly away because they wouldn’t understand his heart. He thought, if only there were a way that I could become a bird and communicate to them my love and concern for them, then perhaps they wouldn’t fear me and would be able receive all that I want to provide for them. This is what the Father did through Jesus Christ, this God-man, who revealed the Father’s heart, love and intent for us. He made us to know that the Father’s heart is not condemnation and judgement, even though that is what we now live under outside of Christ because of our sin and separation from Father. We know that it is just and what we deserve in the light of His holiness, but Father’s heart is love and reconciliation back into a relationship with Him that He first had with Adam before the fall. What we have recognized in Jesus is the heart of the Father for each one of us and for His creation. What Jesus further reveals to us in John 17:20- 23 is His plan and desire was, not just for His disciples to be one with Him, but for us to be one with Father who would hear and believe their message, even as He is one with the Father. “My prayer is not for them alone. I pray also for those who will believe in me through their message, 21that all of them may be one, Father, just as you are in me and I am in you. May they also be in us so that the world may believe that you have sent me. 22I have given them the glory that you gave me, that they may be one as we are one: 23I in them and you in me. May they be brought to complete unity to let the world know that you sent me and have loved them even as you have loved me.” What Father is wanting to express through us is what He expressed through Jesus, His heart of love and reconciliation. How can we truly know and understand the Father? By How we know and express Jesus. As He was the expression of God the Father in the earth, so He has called His believers to be also. Jesus completes His prayer in John 17:25-26 by saying, “Righteous Father, though the world does not know you, I know you, and they know that you have sent me. 26I have made you known to them, and will continue to make you known in order that the love you have for me may be in them and that I myself may be in them.” What Jesus exemplified as one man that Father sent into the earth to reveal Himself through His Son, He now desires to do in a many membered body that functions as one man in Christ Jesus. Jesus, who is no longer the body, but the head of the body bringing us together in the unity of the Holy Spirit that has been given us that we might be corporately and individually the expressions of His love and truth. Jesus completed His course upon the earth. He gave Himself for us and for all of mankind to be the pure and holy lamb that sacrificed His life for our sins. Now He sits at the right Hand of the throne of God, ever making intercession for us that we, by His Spirit and life in us, might continue to be the expression of the way, the truth and the life. We know the Father, because we have first come to know Jesus. The more we know Him, the more we know the Father and the more we know the Father the more we can become the expression of the Father through His Spirit and life that dwells in us. To know Jesus is to know the Father, for they are one, even as we are being made one in them.

Blessings,

#kent