Category Archives: love of God

Show Us The Father — Abandoned

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Abandoned — To give over entirely.

Today is Mark 14.

Jesus at any moment in His 33 years on earth could have changed His course to the cross. He knew exactly why He had came. He knew how this would all play out. He knew the rejection He would suffer. He knew the pain He would endure. Yet He “abandoned” Himself. He gave Himself over to the purpose of His Heavenly Father.

Over and over in this chapter He warned the disciples that He was going to suffer and die. But He chose to abandon His will that desired for His Heavenly Father to “take this cup” from Him. Then He spoke these words, “Yet not what I will, but what You will.” (Verse 36)

Jesus gave Himself. The Father gave His Son! (John 3:16). Our Heavenly Father abandoned, gave over entirely, His Son for us out of His love. When I consider this great love, my thoughts go to what my response should be.

In every situation and circumstance of my life, may I echo the words of my loving Savior. “Yet not what I will, but what You will.” My Heavenly Father gave without reservation His only Son. Jesus gave without reservation His very life. May I give without reservation EVERYTHING I am and live a life that is abandoned to God’s will!

Show Us The Father — Servant

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Today is Mark 10: 32-52.

“Love needs an object to whom it can give itself away, in whom it can lose itself, with whom it can make itself one.” — Andrew Murray

To be honest, thinking about Our Heavenly Father as a Servant has been uncomfortable to me. In my mind, I’ve had Jesus as “the good cop” in the trinity, and the Heavenly Father as “the bad cop.” Which is not true at all. There is no “bad” in God.

When I was reading this section of Scripture this morning and came upon this verse, I was in awe: 

“For even the Son of Man came not to be served but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many.” Mark 10:45 ESV

Jesus came to reveal the Father to us. When we see Him, we see our Heavenly Father. Jesus came as the Humble Servant. This means our Heavenly Father is the Humble Servant too!

The Greek word for serve that is used in this verse is “diakonēsai.” This is translated in other verses as “minister.” To minister is to afford supplies, to give things needful, to supply the means of relief; to relieve. Our Heavenly Father has done just that. He gives and gives and gives. He provides all that we need. He is always at work for our good in every situation. He serves!

When Jesus knelt on His knees and washed the feet of His disciples, He displayed the very love of our Heavenly Father, who serves us. Jesus, the King of Kings, took the nature of a servant and gave Himself away to provide the very thing His disciples needed, His love.

Our Heavenly Father sent His Son to meet our most pressing need, salvation from sin. “For God so loved the world, He gave…” He ministered… He served us out of His love.

Our Heavenly Father serves us as any good Dad would. He takes good care of us! He provides, sustains, is attentive to our cry, etc,

Jesus shows us the Father who serves. We were made to display that image to others, i.e. imitate God! May we give ourselves away in service that glorifies our Heavenly Father who gives Himself in service to us!

Show Us The Father — Abundant Provider,

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Today is Mark 8.

In Jesus, there is abundance for every need. Two times the crowds were in need for physical food and Jesus provided. What was it that Jesus used to provide the need? It was ALL the disciples had. Jesus took what was given to Him, a few loaves and fish. He not only provided a meal for a crowd, but leftovers that displayed His generous provision.

Our Heavenly Father is very generous in His provision for us! He is the same today as He was yesterday, and He will be the same forever. We can come to Him with what we have, all of us. He will work the miraculous in what we offer up to Him with generous abundance!

Show Us The Father — One on One

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Today is Mark 7.

“After he took him aside, away from the crowd, Jesus…” verse 33

I love how Jesus took time for the individual. The man who was deaf and could not speak could have been healed in a manner of seconds with Jesus’s touch, but Jesus took him aside. He gave the man one on one attention.

Jesus is personal. He is all about connecting with “the one” i.e. you and me. He loves to take us aside, away from the crowd, to be with Him in a deep, personal, and intimate relationship.

Jesus displayed the desire of Our Heavenly Father. He created us for intimacy with Him. We have been designed for a relationship that is connected to Him in oneness with Him. He in us and us in Him. 

“This is how we know that we live in him and he in us: He has given us of his Spirit.”
‭‭1 John‬ ‭4‬:‭13‬ ‭NIV‬‬

Show Us The Father — Compassionate

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“When he went ashore he saw a great crowd, and he had compassion on them, because they were like sheep without a shepherd. And he began to teach them many things.”
‭‭Mark‬ ‭6‬:‭34‬ ‭ESV‬‬

Today is Mark 6:30-56.

Jesus told His disciples to “Come away by yourselves to a desolate place and rest a while.” They had been very busy ministering to people and sharing the Good News. So much so that they hadn’t even had time to take care of the basics, such as eating and rest.

When they went a way in the boat and arrived at the resting place, the crowds came. Jesus looked at the “great crowd, and he had compassion on them…” He was moved by their needs. His will for them was good and He saw the hurts, the brokenness, the spiritual hunger. They were like “sheep without a shepherd.” They needed Him to keep them, to care for them, to meet their needs.

Jesus “began to teach them many things.” He met their spiritual hunger with spiritual food. Then He worked a great miracle providing physical food to meet their physical need. Jesus displayed to us compassion!

Our Heavenly Father is compassionate! He sees our needs, including our greatest one, to be connected to Him in a relationship. He knows that apart from Him, we will experience nothing but death, darkness, and destruction. He cares very much about not only our physical needs, but our spiritual needs as well.

How good it is to know that Our Heavenly Father is moved by our needs of Him! He loves us with great compassion!

Show Us The Father — Faithful

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Today’s reading is Mark :1-29.

Jesus went to His hometown. As He was teaching, the people who heard Him had a hard time looking at Jesus as anything more than “the carpenter’s son.” Even though He spoke with wisdom, and did mighty works. They were in “unbelief.” Jesus “marveled” at it. But this did not deter Jesus from continuing His mission that God had sent Him to do. He continued to go about the villages teaching. Jesus was faithful! He displayed the faithfulness of His Heavenly Father.

I know I have acted like the people of Jesus’s hometown a time or two in my life. I heard the Word of Wisdom, and I knew that God did mighty works, Yet I stood in unbelief. I am thankful that God has been faithful to me. He continued to call to me. He continued to draw me to Himself.

The Apostle Paul described the faithfulness of God like this:

“if we are faithless, he remains faithful, for he cannot disown himself.”
‭‭2 Timothy‬ ‭2‬:‭13‬ ‭NIV‬‬

Jesus “could do no mighty works there…” because of their unbelief. His desire is to do mighty works in our lives. This is why He faithfully pursues us. May we repent of our unbelief and surrender to Him our faithful God!

Show Us The Father — The Personal God

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““You see the people crowding against you,” his disciples answered, “and yet you can ask, ‘Who touched me?’ ””
‭‭Mark‬ ‭5‬:‭31‬ ‭NIV‬‬

Jesus was surrounded by crowds of people, but He still saw the needs of the one. One man in a crowd needed Jesus to heal his dying daughter. Jesus’s response is to head towards that man’s, Jairus, home to pray for his little girl.

As they walk through the crowd where people were pressing up against Jesus on all sides, one woman was healed in a very personal way. Jesus stopped to address her individually.

You and I are only one in 8 billion on this planet. There are so many others pressing in around Jesus. Yet He stops for the one, you/ me.

So many around us but He comes to our home of our hearts and raises the dead within us.

Jesus shows us a Heavenly Father who is personal. He is for each of us one on one. He wants intimate relationship with each of us. Jesus went to the cross, died and rose again to extend the invitation that our Heavenly Father desires for us to receive. He desires for us to come. Will we respond to His personal invitation for our time to be one on one with Him?

Show Us The Father — He is Sovereign

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Today is Mark 4:30-41.

Circumstances can loom intimidating and large. In today’s passage the disciples found themselves in a circumstance they knew was bigger than them, “a great windstorm” and “waves… breaking the boat” they were in. When they woke Jesus who was asleep in the oat, they asked Him a question that I’m sure I have asked God before, “Teacher, do you not care that we are perishing?” Or in my words it may have sounded like, “God, don’t you care…?”

Then Jesus speaks, “Peace! Be still!”

“Why are you so afraid? Have you still no faith?” These are the questions that Jesus asks as they sat in the boat in the “great calm.”

Every day as they walked with Jesus, the disciples saw Him perform miracles, speak with wisdom like no one else, heal, cast out demons, etc. He displayed that He indeed is Lord, and sovereign over all. He is supreme in power and dominion.

In my life, God has come through, time after time after time. Why would I be afraid and have no faith? If Jesus displayed His sovereignty on the boat that day with His disciples, He has not changed.

Jesus shows me my Heavenly Father. My God is Sovereign over the storms that may blow in my life. The safest place to be in a time of storms and uncertainty is in the boat with Jesus! He alone has the power to say, “Peace! Be Still!” And bring calmness in uncertainty! He is in control. He is Sovereign and my sovereign God loves me.

How can I lose?

Show Us the Father — Friend of Sinners

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Today is Mark 2:1-17.

I can vividly remember the weight of my sin. I have known the emptiness of being separated from God. I can imagine how those who encountered Jesus in this chapter (the paralyzed man and Levi) must have felt, under the weight of their sin.

Jesus came to reconcile us to God. He “has authority on earth to forgive sins.” (Verse 10) Jesus, God with us, ate with sinners.

He told the self righteous religious leaders, who thought they had it together, “I came not to call the righteous, but sinners.” These leaders disliked Jesus all the more. In their preoccupation with how they looked, acted, and lived, they lived consumed with themselves. They couldn’t see the one truth that we all need to realize…we are all sinners too. They too were carrying the weight of sin as the ones they so quickly judged. Had they seen it and received God’s forgiveness, they would have had opportunity to experience God in truth. The God they thought they knew all about…

Jesus told them, “Those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick. I came not to call the righteous, but sinners.”

Jesus came so He could call the sinners to Himself. He came so we could be forgiven. Our Heavenly Father desires for sinners to come! He is still calling us, sinners, today!

“…all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God,”
‭‭Romans‬ ‭3‬:‭10‬, ‭23‬ ‭ESV‬‬

Jesus knew this truth! He came, He forgave sinners, and He ate with them! He has calls us His friends.

The ones who think they don’t need forgiveness of sins miss what Jesus was trying to show us about the Heavenly Father. He desires to be the sinner’s greatest friend!

“The saying is trustworthy and deserving of full acceptance, that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners, of whom I am the foremost.”
‭‭1 Timothy‬ ‭1‬:‭15‬ ‭ESV‬‬

Show Us the Father — Good Will Toward Men

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Today is Mark 1:21-45.

When teaching about the love of God, A. W. Tozer said, “First of all, love is the principle of good will. The angel sang, “good will towards men.” (Luke 2:14) Love always wills the good of its object and never wills any harm to its object.”

Jesus demonstrated God’s love in the words He spoke. “He taught them….”(verse 22) God knew that the best way for us to see Him and understand Him, was for us to be taught by Him. His will towards us came out in every Word Jesus taught or preached.

Jesus demonstrated God’s love, His will for our good when He healed the sick. “He healed many who were sick with various disease, and cast out many demons…” (verse 34) In fact Jesus spoke the very intent of God’s heart towards us when approached by a leper desperate for Jesus to make him clean, free of the horrendous disease. Jesus said, “I will…” (verse 41) His divine determination was for that man’s good, to be made whole, “clean.”

Jesus is still demonstrating God’s love. As Paul wrote in Romans 5:8:

“But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.”
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Jesus is our Heavenly Father’s love demonstrated — His will for our good. He wants us to Know Him!

He wants us to know His love!