I am SO excited about the teen conference I get to speak at on February 13th at The Gate in Kinston, North Carolina. To start off the conference, I want to answer some of the questions that the girls asked last year, but we didn't get to. A big one was "What is God like?".
This morning as I was preparing for the conference, I literally found myself giggling at just how cool God is! How amazing is His love, acceptance and forgiveness.
God is...
The Perfect Father
Isaiah 64:8 "Yet, O Lord, you are our Father. We are the clay. You are the potter; we are all the work of your hands." NIV
For some of us, the word "father" conjurs up thoughts that are less than perfect (we all have fathers that were human), but we need to start by getting past any of these negative images of what a father is. God, our father, is perfect.
As this perfect father, He is love. I didn't say that He is loving, which is an action. I said "He is love". It is who He is; it is His character. Since it is who He is, He cannot do anything that is contary to love.
As this perfect father, He is tender toward us. Zephaniah 3:17 describes Him well, "The Lord your God is with you; he is mighty to save. He will take great delight in you; he will quiet you with his love, he will rejoice over you with singing." (NIV)
These are loving words; words of intimacy. He takes great delight in you. Delight means to take great joy or extreme pleasure. The God of the universe receives extreme pleasure in you; his creation.
He will quiet you with his love. This phrase brings up images of my husband, Greg, holding one of our babies when they were wailing. He was quieting them with his love; reassuring them that he was near and was caring for them.
He will rejoice over you with singing. My husband has sang songs to my kids from the day they were born; mostly songs that make them laugh. I can just picture the Father doing the same; rejoicing over us!
He knows you, gets you and still loves you! Sometimes you might not feel like that is true with your parents. They may have no idea about the thing you are doing in your life or the things you are thinking about doing, but your heavenly Father does and still loves you! Psalm 139 says He knows you inside and out...and still loves you! Aren't you SO glad? I sure am!!!
I am so glad; so grateful to have a perfect Father! Lord...Thank you!
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2 comments:
I love Zephaniah 3:17...It's hard to imagine God taking great delight in you, quieting you with His love, and rejoicing over you when you don't feel worthy of His love or attention. But I pray that all of us would experience and believe His love. It's one thing to say we know God loves us but it's another to believe it. I'm finally starting to believe it. :)
Thanks for this!
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