Father God's Love
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January 05, 2014 |
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 "We have come to know and have believed the love which God has for us. God is love, and the one who abides in love abides in God, and God abides in him" (1 John 4:16).
Senior Pastor Dr. Jaerock Lee
Seeing the world covered with white snow, we can feel the heart of God. We can feel the love of the Father who wants to cover the whole world with His love and make it white and clean. The evidence of His love is Jesus. He sent Jesus in order to cover the whole world with His love and to cleanse all the sins of all mankind. Jesus poured out the love of the Father God during the three years of His ministry. At the end, He died on the cross to redeem mankind from their sins.
If we really believe in the love of God who gave His only begotten Son, we have to abide in His love, too. Namely, we have to abide in the truth. Because Jesus came to forgive us of our sins, we must have nothing to do with sins. But how many people actually live such a life today?
The churches are not purifying the world at this end time, but instead they are being stained by the world. Through this message, I hope you will realize more deeply the love of the Father God that's been given you and try to pay back His love by becoming His true children.
First is the love in the patience of the Father God that He has had for so very long
God created Adam in order to gain true children. He wanted to share happiness with His children who could understand His heart. But He could not get such children easily. Even though God sent His chosen ones and taught the people the way of life, people continuously refused to accept God. But God still did not give up on us.
In 2 Peter 3:8-9 it says, "But do not let this one fact escape your notice, beloved, that with the Lord one day is like a thousand years, and a thousand years like one day. The Lord is not slow about His promise, as some count slowness, but is patient toward you, not wishing for any to perish but for all to come to repentance." As written, He waited a thousand years and another thousand years, and thus for six thousand years now He has waited. He kept on earnestly hoping that true sons and daughters who could understand His heart would come forth someday. To be patient in the spiritual sense is not just to sit and wait quietly. It is to bear with all the consequences of being patient and to pay the price until the fruit is finally borne.
God the Father has also been bearing with the aftermaths of His patience and He has suffered great pain paying the price. One time He had to punish the whole world with a flood. When He had to punish the world that He had created with so much love, from His heart flowed so many tears like the rains that flooded the Earth. He had to watch as the chosen people, Israel, betrayed Him and worshipped idols. He also had to see their destruction. He had to see His only begotten Son being despised by the people and finally crucified.
It is not that God can take such things easily because He is divine. Because He also has humanity like us, He feels pain, sorrow, joy, and happiness. And, because He is goodness itself, He feels such feelings even more intensely than any others. Whenever He saw that the world that He carefully created was stained by sins and that the people vented evil, He suffered unbearable pains. And yet He is still waiting. He has been waiting until this moment for such a long time with the belief that certainly there would be true children by the time human cultivation is over.
And it is the same for us as well. When you did not accept the gospel right away and when you could not cast away sins soon enough, if God had given us only a couple of chances and then given up, what would have happened to us? Most of us probably would not have been saved. I hope you will remember that you are what you are today because of the love of the Father who has been patient with us for such a long time.
Second is the love of the Father who has not forsaken us but changed us.
At the time of the Exodus, the sons of Israel saw so many powerful works of God. They saw the Ten Plagues, the parting of the Red Sea, the water gushing out from a rock. They ate the manna and quail coming down from the heaven. Yet the problem remained that their hearts did not change even though they had so many experiences. When they saw the glory of God, they rejoiced and praised Him. But when there were hardships, they immediately began to complain, and they continued to disobey again and again.
Eventually, God told Moses He would forsake them, but Moses put up his life to bring down the forgiveness of God. At that time, because Moses understood the heart of God very well he could boldly ask for God to forgive them, even as he observed God's wrath. Namely, the deeper part of God's heart is that He wanted to save them even though they should have been punished according to justice, and Moses knew this heart of God very well.
In a sense, it was not an easy task to lead the people who had been slaves for a long time and had become so stiff-necked. It would have been easier to form a whole new group of people, teach them the Law and train them.
Suppose you gave birth to a son and raised him with so much care. But you hear that he has a congenital disability. Can you just say "He can't be cured so why should we suffer any longer raising such a child? We can have other children and raise them!" and then just give up on your son? Real parents would never be able to do that. Furthermore, if there is just the least bit of a possibility, and even though you have to spend your entire family fortune, you would want to cure your son.
The same goes for the heart of God the Father. He sometimes gets angry or rebukes the people harshly, but He can never forsake them. It is the heart of the Father to save and change the people. If you think of your past, can you say that you were good-hearted? How strong were your self-righteousness and frameworks, and to what extent have you committed acts of disobedience? Some of you were so slow to change, that people around you were thinking, "When is he going to change? Is it possible for him to really enter into spirit?" But the Father has never forsaken you and He has given you grace until the end so you could change. I hope you will be thankful once again that you can still run towards New Jerusalem because of His love.
Third is the love of the Father who has let us bear the fruits of glory
Jesus did not come to this earth just to save us. Of course we have to be forgiven of our sins, but eventually, He wanted us to become His true children by resembling Him and enjoy glory together with Him.
Of course, we should be so thankful that we can go to even Paradise. How emotional we would be in having just barely escaped the fires of Hell! But what God wanted to give to us was not Paradise, but New Jerusalem! He does not want us to remain at a level of embarrassment and shame for not having cast away sins completely, but He wants us to enjoy great honor by changing into true children of God who resemble Him.
There are many believers who do not think beyond receiving salvation, but we are different. We know that there are different measures of faith even after being saved, and that we have to take hold of Heaven by force. Thus, we can seek greater glory. I hope you will once again engrave the love of God who has let you enjoy greater glory.
Dear brothers and sisters in Christ, the love of the Father is the love of patience, love of not forsaking but changing us, and love of giving us great glory.
I pray in the name of the Lord that all of you will not just receive salvation through repentance. I pray that you will pay back the love of the Lord who came to this earth for us by standing on the rock of faith and even coming forth as fruits of spirit and whole spirit!
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