Friday 6 Jul 2012

Friday Reading: John 8:41-47

Key Verse: John 8:42
42  Jesus said unto them, If God were your Father, ye would love me: for I proceeded forth and came from God; neither came I of myself, but he sent me.

Devotion:
There are times when Jesus would say things that we may think of as being harsh or being unkind, but when we get to read all of what He has said, when we get to read all circumstance, when we get to learn of all that He continues to do before we learn of things, then we get to learn of His great love for us. Just like we may think that our parents have lost the plot or that they do not understand our situations, we often think that somehow God does not quite get things – what we do not know is all that they, and God, have to deal with in order to keep things going for us!

When Jesus turns round and reminds us that we should be loving God as our own fathers then we need to stop and take notice. We need to lift up our heavenly Father to His rightful place as God of all. We need to make sure that we acknowledge Him as being our Creator and our God. It is He who is in charge and He alone who is able to care for and cater for all of our needs. Our parents will do all that they can to make sure that things go well, and when we get to be parents we try to make sure that we do all that we can – but God alone is able!

There are times when I despair at all the things that I should have been able to do as a father, times when I wish I had done more; but I know that I have done well to be able to guide my children to God because it is through Him alone that they will be able to withstand so much more. Don’t allow your situations to get you down. You don’t know the half of it!

When we love our parents, we listen to them. When we respect those around us, we listen to them. When we want to find out the truth, we seek it. When we want to do things our own way instead of God ways then we are working against all of those things that he is trying to teach us about. To show our love for God we need to listen to Him, His ways and obey them. The obeying part is going to be hard unless we open our hearts to His ways.

Points to Ponder:
How do you show your love?

Are you working with God, your Father?