The Love of the Father - By Bracy Greer

A virtue is not a virtue until it is tested. We can learn about God's truth for this and God's truth for that, but it doesn't become a part of our lives until we face a tough situation and practice the truth we have learned.

Make a list of the things you believe about God. Then make another list of how those things are translated into your life. That will be a much shorter list. Then throw the other list away. We don't really believe until the truth gets acted out in our lives, and it won't get acted out until we admit how little we really believe. That is where we must start.

The hardships and crises we endure are essential to learning God's truths. We have our mountain tops where we gather together and immerse ourselves in the Word and encourage one another. But that is simply preparation for the path that lies ahead. We must descend from the mountain to the path God has chosen, and that path through the valleys and shadows is where the truth will finally lodge in our hearts.

We don't learn to trust God until we're in a place where trust is required. We don't learn to practice His truths until we're in the right situation. All belief must be put to the test. Don't resent God for the tough times. See them as great opportunities for experiencing His faithfulness.

We endure trials not just for our own growth but to bring glory to God. He will put us in positions that look impossible to those around us. They will say, "That's crazy." We will seem to fail utterly, and the skeptics will say, "I knew that was just a bunch of religious nonsense." But then God will resurrect us right before those people. He will take what is humanly impossible and make it happen, and the glory must be His, because man could not have done it.

In spite of our best intentions, we cannot trust God through trials until His love fills our hearts. Only His love can sustain us. Often we must inflict pain on our own children for their own good, whether through discipline, medicine, or other necessary painful experiences. Similarly, when God allows pain in our lives, we will be tempted to resent Him, unless we understand the deep well of love behind His every action. Our trials are not accidents. They are divine appointments, put there by a loving Father.

1 John 2:15: Love not the world, neither the things that are in the world, for if any man love the world, the love of the Father is not in him.

That verse doesn't mean what I used to think it meant. I used to teach that if we just love God enough, we wouldn't get hung up on the stuff of the world. But it's not saying that. We are not capable of loving God enough. The verse is saying that if we have received the Father's love--if that love has come to us--then we won't want the world. Instead of trying to conjure up enough love for God we must open our hearts and let Him pour His love in. Then we will quit turning to the world for solutions or solace, because we will know that all that happens to us is in the hands of our loving Father.

God is all knowledge. He knows what to do. He is all power. He is able to do it. And He is all love. He will do it because He loves us.

God doesn't call emergency council meetings in heaven. He is never at a loss. He doesn't say, "Uh Oh" or "whoops." He never wrings His hands. He is all knowledge and all wisdom. He knows what to do and the perfect time to do it. And He has the power to accomplish His will, which is to love us and to conform us to the image of His son.

Too many people think our walk is determined by fate. Fate is that which is human. Fate is what I am compelled to be. "I just can't help it. My grandmother was redheaded and had a bad temper. I got part of it." If we walk in what is human, we will be controlled by fate. We will be slaves to our passions.

No, our walk should be determined by destiny. Destiny is what I am meant to be. An all-wise, all-powerful, all-loving God has chosen us to confound the wisdom of the world, to confound the fate that would enslave us. He has called us to a higher destiny. Psalm 139 says that God saw us in our mother's womb and put all the delicate parts together. He scheduled every day of our lives. The happiest man is the one who lives closest to what God scheduled in the womb.

If we have All-Wisdom choosing for us, why would anyone choose differently? But we do it. We use our peanut-finite thinking and try to outthink God the All-Wise. Don't ever weigh pros and cons. A decision can be all cons, but if God said do it, it's the wisest thing to do.

I have a list of the major doctrines in the New Testament with the verses that apply under each heading. One heading is predominant--endurance. Run the race. God is saying to represent Me; act like what I have revealed to you about myself is true. He is going to let us be tested. He is going to see how much we truly believe. Then and only then can His truth become apparent to a lost world.

The Amplified Bible brings out the meaning of 1 Peter 4:12: Beloved, do not be amazed and bewildered at the fiery ordeal which is taking place to test your quality. But insofar as you are sharing Christ's sufferings, rejoice so that His glory is revealed. His glory is revealed when we endure the testings that come!

We cannot endure the testings if we only play at our relationship with God. We must give our all, just as the beloved gives his all to the one he loves. God in His love gave us His all, and only as we abide in that love and give all back to the Father of love will we stand firm in the time of testing.

Romans 12:1: I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that you present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable unto God, which is your reasonable service. People want to give their hearts to Jesus, but that won't work if that's all we give Him. We must give him our legs, arms, head, and body. Be not conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind that you may become the proof of His will. The proof of His will. Glory to God! What a privilege to be the walking proof of God at the factory, the furniture warehouse, the grocery store, wherever we go.

As believers we often get hung up on little petty concerns while God is calling us to a great and glorious way of life--becoming living proof that He reigns! The hardships and tests that God puts in our lives may not feel like privileges, but indeed they are. When we persevere, when we give everything over to God and let Him work His way in us, we bring Him great glory.

When he was only 17, William Booth said he wanted to live his life to make God famous. Think of that. God gives us opportunities to make Him famous.

God also gives us opportunities to bring joy to others. His love doesn't grow stagnant in our lives but flows through us to bless those around us.

In one of his epistles, John said he had no greater joy than to hear that his spiritual children walk in truth. Don't pass over that lightly. John wasn't exaggerating like you and I are prone to do. He was writing under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit and speaking truly. As one of Jesus' closest disciples, he certainly had joyful memories that he treasured from those sweet days of literal walking with His Lord. Yet he said he had no greater joy than to hear that his children walked in truth.

We are given the same opportunity. When we walk in truth--when we persevere and run the race and live out the truths we have been taught--then we bring joy to those with whom we labor and to the Father Himself. We can bring joy to the Father's heart! I don't have the superlatives to describe such a wonder--it's glorious, powerful, and very, very precious.

I know exactly what Peter meant when, on the mount of transfiguration, he asked to build some tabernacles for Jesus and the heavenly guests. "Let's stay here. This is beautiful! This feels good!" But no--Jesus had to come off that beautiful mountain and climb the terrible hill of Golgotha. He didn't just tell or even show His disciples the truth of His heavenly calling--He had to leave the mountain and live out that truth, which in His case meant the ultimate sacrifice. But the triumph He accomplished through that sacrifice brought forth real beauty and lasting power that built a kingdom for all time.

Christ's love could not be shown simply through the mount of transfiguration. His love required much more than sweet, beautiful gifts. His love required His very life. God's love required His very Son. Likewise, our love for God and others requires more than nice words and gestures. It requires our very life. We must leave our own mountains of sweet spiritual communion and take up our cross and present our bodies a living sacrifice.

The mountain top is special, but the valley tells all. Our oneness of purpose and our purity of heart are tested and refined in the valley.

If you take an old-fashioned quarter that's silver all the way through and put it beside a new silver-plated quarter you'll not necessarily see the difference. But when you drop them, one will go "bing" and one will go "bup." That is what is fixing to happen to all of us. In church we all look real. But in God's appointment we'll get thrown to the ground. After the mountain-top experience, we'll hit bottom. Then people will see who is silver-plated only and who is genuine through and through.

You can't have something 99 percent pure. No, that's 1 percent impure. Purity is purity--it's all or nothing. God wants purity. The pure in heart will see God. He is able to keep us from falling and to present us faultless before His throne.

We walk in truth just as we walk in the physical body--one step at a time. Spiritually we walk one choice at a time. As we practice walking in truth, we will learn to do it without thinking about it, just as we physically walk. With God empowering us, we should be able to look back on a day of activity and find that lust did not conceive in our hearts one time--no sexual lust, no lust for things, no lust for power, and so on. We walk in truth.

It is not impossible; it is God's will. He wants to put us on display in such a way that He can say, "Look at that man who walks upright before me, whose heart is perfect towards me." Don't get hung up on that word "perfect." In the scriptures it means "the heart that will hold nothing back from Me." It doesn't mean perfect performance. It means giving ourselves over entirely, a living sacrifice. It means going there when God wants us there, and going there God's way. We walk in His character.

And that walk, my friends, provides all the excitement we could ever want. God is not boring and His schedule is not boring. It's the adventure of adventures. God works through process and crisis. The process is slow and provides the training opportunities for the time of crisis. The crisis is sudden and casts light back upon the process, often explaining how God is working in our lives. We see what He is preparing us for. The crisis is not an accident. God is in full control, teaching us perseverance, molding us to bring glory to Himself. If we can see beyond the momentary inconvenience and pain to the greater glory, we will see the adventure and opportunity of the Christian walk. What glory to walk in God's truth, one choice at a time!

And the most glorious part of that walk is the sweet love we share with our Lord, knowing that He controls whatever trial or pain we must endure. The crises in our lives are not accidents but divine appointments scheduled by a loving Father.

The devil has done a good job making us believe we are not lovable to the Father. But in John 17 we learn the Father loves us just like He loves Jesus. We understand why He loves Jesus, but we can't understand why He loves us. Even so, it's a false humility that doesn't accept that love. We must grasp hold of the wonder that God indeed loves us as He loves Jesus, and then we must embrace that love and not argue with it.

When we embrace the fact that He loves us, when we embrace the fact that we are His children, when we see Calvary and all that it took for Him to bring us back to Himself, do you think we are going to love the world? Do you think the world can offer anything of attraction? The world cannot possess us when we walk in possession of the love of the Father.

Fathers, make it easy for your children to embrace the love of the Father. Too often we as fathers put up obstacles to God because our own love is so inadequate. We hate seeing our children get hurt, and when they get hurt through disobedience, our first reaction is anger. We're not mad at the child but mad at the sight of the pain, because it was so unnecessary. But the child, unable to see the love deep in our hearts, sees only the anger, and the wound to her spirit is far deeper and more damaging than the wound to her body. We must let the love of the Father flow through us to our children, helping our children in turn discover that rich love for themselves.

All of us carry memories of imperfect earthly fathers, and that's why we can never conjure up full and complete love for our Heavenly Father. But God in His mercy never expects us too. He just asks us to open ourselves to His love, which will fill us and sustain us in our time of trial. Once we embrace that love, we will never turn back to the world. The world will hold no attraction. There is nothing to rival the love of the Father.