Living securely in Father's affection

Jesus TRUSTED His Father when the water was over His head and rising...
in the wilderness...
and then most significantly on the cross.

TRUST is the fruit of knowing you are LOVED.
Jesus lived securely in His fathers affection no matter what it looked and felt like...no matter how dark it got...now so can I.

If you know some one hates you or even dislikes you or is flaky in his affection towards you...(sometimes hot and some times cool)...can you trust him? NO-way!

I lived much of my life believing God was Bi-Polar.

How are we to trust a God who would take out his anger and wrath on His own son?
That is abuse in it's worst form beyond believability...
You can't trust that kind of a father. You can fear him... and try and appease him.
But trust? Impossible! NO-way!

How could a loving father destroy his own son to appease His anger?

Here is the truth...God is not capable of wrath and anger against anyone of us. He created us to be His Sons.
He is Holy but He is also Love.
And Jesus painted for us a perfect picture of what a loving Father would look like.

God's wrath is reserved for some thing and some one else...yes there was and will be judgement day... the day of the vengeance of our God.

Malachi and numerous other prophets prophesied about a coming great and terrible day of judgement.

Did you know there are actually two great and terrible days of judgement.

THE FIRST JUDGEMENT DAY- Two thousand years ago on a cross called Calvary the wrath of God was poured out on that ( the power of sin) which was destroying the object of His affection (you and me).

It was a day in history where the fury of God was unleashed but it wasn't unleashed against His Son even though from Jesus perspective in that moment it looked and felt that way. You see it wasn't the cross that killed Jesus. It wasn't the Romans or the Jews that killed him. And it wasn't His father. Jesus was a perfect man! They could have stripped every bit of meat off his body and he would not have died. Mel Gibson did a good job showing that on film. Scripture is clear on this. "Only the man that sins dies".

No, it wasn't the cross that killed Him. It was His LOVE that killed him.. when He chose to become my sin. You see I was mired over my head in a substance that had so deformed and marred the original me. The me that He dreamed of when I first crossed His mind, way back before the worlds were made. I was His ruined, yet priceless work of art.

You see when Father, Son and Holy Spirit conspired to save you and me they knew that sin's power would have to be destroyed completely in order for our complete redemption.

It wasn't until God in the form of the god-man Jesus, out of LOVE chose to take on my sin...to actually become my sin that He became the lightning rod for the wrath of God. It was in those terrible hours, the great and terrible day of the Lord, where Jesus hung between heaven and hell absorbing the full impact of the fury of the Holy Loving Father. It was that act of amazing sacrificial LOVE where our sin was burnt to cinders, never again to have the power over our lives.

And in the darkest moment of history with every eye in heaven and in hell focused on Him... and every sense and awareness of His Father was no where to be seen or felt, Jesus TRUSTED and in one final act of obedience committed Himself to His Father..."into thy hands I commit my Spirit".

The finished work of the cross...the powers of sin broken permanently over our lives... when we chose to believe. Oh the Power of the cross! The great and terrible day of the Lord...

The Next JUDGEMENT DAY!

But there is coming another day of judgement...the day when the prince of this world will be judged...Hallelujah!!!

Today we get to live this side of the cross, in between these two great and terrible days of the Lord.
And TRUST is the currency!....my head against His chest...because He LOVES me...and my kids and my kids kids and your too...until the kingdoms of this world become the kingdoms of His Christ!

Today is the day of salvation!
Today is another day that we get to live in the affectionate LOVE of an amazing Father...

Hallelujah!!!

Want to know Jesus secret for success? Send me $500...no just kidding!

Religion has made it the best kept secret in the universe and it is time you and I "get this" so we too can successfully fulfill our destiny...

There is only one commandment we are asked to keep.

I'm not kidding!

Jesus boiled all of the commandments down to one! And if you follow his story He only kept one.

He made it up and it was the only rule He lived by...remember how often He was in trouble for breaking other rules.

And it isn't the one that first comes to mind!

You interested... which one it is?

Hint...He said "a new command I give you"

(and it wasn't an add on to another list....It stands alone as the replacement for all of the other thou shalt lists, past, present and future... including thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all of thy heart, soul, mind and strength!)

....not that there is anything particularly wrong with all of the other lists....it's just that by discovering and obeying this one over riding commandment, all of the other lists become obsolete,

... because the end goal of all of the other lists are miraculously and organically fleshed out as we learn to live in the amazing revelation of this one thing....this New commandment!!!

Here it is.....

"LIVE LOVED" short for "Love one another as I have loved you."

This was Jesus secret to success. Because He lived securely in His Father's affection, He was able to TRUST His Father in EVERY circumstance. His one and only focus was to do always the thing that pleased Him. Because He lived loved He was the express image of His Father

Look it up!... John 12-17

The following in the Message is some of what He said to his disciples on that last evening before the cross...

"If any of you wants to serve me, then FOLLOW me. (stick really, really close to me or in other words live loved.) Then you will be where I am, ready to serve at a moment's notice."

"As you have the light, BE-LIEVE in the light. Then the light will be WITHIN you shining through your lives. You'll BE children of light."

...having LOVED his dear companions, he continued to LOVE them right to the end. (Actually one of the disciples, the one who referred to himself as "THE one Jesus loved dearly" well, he was reclining against him, his head on his shoulder during this conversation. He was definitely feeling the love.

"...so if I the Master and Teacher, washed your feet, you must now wash each other's feet...what I've done YOU DO." NOTE- We get to do it with Him as we live loved.

Then He said:

"Let me give you a new command: LOVE one another. In the same way I lOVED YOU, YOU LOVE one another." NOTE- The only way you will become loving is to abide in it yourself.

(to Peter and the others) "I am with you only a short time longer...where I go you are not able to come... You can't now follow me where I am going... You will follow later...the truth is today, before the cock crows you will deny me three times...(this is over your head, beyond your capacity) Don't let this throw you...TRUST IN ME ...I'll come back and get you so you CAN live where I live, do what I do, live in me...(the secret) I am the way, the truth and the life."

You see sin was the problem ...and He was about to fix the problem....the power of sin was about to be destroyed.... so we could be restored to our rightful created value as sons of the Father...we could live where we were born to live, with and in Him, where He is, in His position of advantage...loved.

Then Jesus reveals where He lived.. loved!

"Don't you believe that I am IN the Father and the Father is IN me?... the Father who resides in me crafts each word into a devine act."

"Believe me: I am IN my Father and my Father is IN me. If you can't believe that, believe what you see- these works. The person who TRUSTS me will not only do what I am doing but even greater things, because I am on my way to the Father, I am giving you the same work to do that I have been doing. You can count on it. From now on, whatever you request along the lines of who I am and what I am doing, I'll do it..."

"You will always have some one with you. This friend is the Spirit of truth...He has been staying with you and will even be in you.....you are going to see me because I am alive and you are about to come alive. At that moment you will KNOW absolutely that I am in my Father, and you are in me, and I am in you."

And here it is in plain english...the new home where we are to live...His love.

"Live in me. Make your home in me just as I do in you....you can't bear fruit unless you are joined in me"...living loved.

"When you are joined with me and I with you, the relationship intimate and organic the harvest is sure to be abundant."

"If you make yourself at home with me and my words are at home in you you can be sure that whatever you ask will listened to and acted upon."

"I've LOVED you the way my Father has LOVED me. MAKE YOURSELVES AT HOME IN MY LOVE. If you keep my commands" (abide in me, lean on me), "you'll remain intimately at home in my love. That's what I've done- kept my Father's commands and made myself at home in His love."

"This is my Command: LOVE ONE ANOTHER THE WAY I LOVED YOU. This is the very best way to love."

"You are my friends...I no longer call you servants...I chose you and put you in the world to bear fruit, fruit that won't spoil...LOVE ONE ANOTHER."

"You are about to make a run for it- saving your own skins and abandoning me. But I am not abandoned. The Father is with me. I've told you all this so that TRUSTING in me, you will be unshakable and assured, deeply at peace." (Again, we learn to live loved and to trust how? Usually like the disciples... by not trusting.)

"In this Godless world you will continue to experience difficult circumstances. But be of good cheer! I've conquered the world."

See...told you!

Again...What was Jesus secret to success?

Because He lived securely in His Father's affection, He was able to TRUST His Father in EVERY circumstance. His one and only focus was to do always the thing that pleased His Father.

He lived loved and was the express image of His Father...

As He is so are we in this world.

Abide in father's affection...lean, trust, believe...

ONE THING ONLY! Live loved my friends!