Spirit & Truth # 281
“The Trinity of Love – God the Father”
By Greg Smith
For
the next three weeks, I want to go back to the basics, and talk about your
relationship with God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit. The Trinity is a divine mystery that can make
your head swim—if you look at God philosophically. But God wants us to know Him relationally—and that’s something quite different. The Sunday
School Chronicle tells the following story about a father’s relationship
with his child:
In one of Dr. J. Wilbur Chapman's
meetings a man rose to give the following remarkable testimony: "I got off
at the Pennsylvania depot one day as a tramp, and for a year I begged on the
streets for a living. One day I touched a man on the shoulder and said,
`Mister, please give me a dime.' As soon as I saw his face, I recognized my old
father. `Father, don't you know me?' I asked. Throwing his arms around me, he
cried, `I have found you, I have found you, I have found you; all I have is
yours.' Men, think of it, that I, a tramp, stood begging my father for ten
cents, when for eighteen years he had been looking for me, to give me all he
was worth."
God
the Father is constantly seeking out His children, eager to restore broken
relationships and lost love. The idea of
God as heavenly Father challenges many people who have had a difficult
relationship with an earthly father.
When they think of Father,
they think of abuse, neglect, or abandonment.
Feelings of guilt, shame, and betrayal may come to mind. But God the Father is altogether different.
Ephesians
3:14-15 (NIV) says, “For this reason I kneel before the Father, from whom his
whole family in heaven and on earth derives its name.” Catt, Kendrick, and Kendrick, authors of the Honor Begins at Home Bible study,
write: “In verses 14-15, Paul reveals
God as the perfect Father. We don’t call
God Father because He is like us
earthly fathers; rather, we are called fathers
because we need to be like Him! While
your earthly father may disappoint you at times, your Heavenly Father is the
perfect example you need (Pg. 19).”[i]
God
the Father loves you more than any earthly father ever could. He completes whatever is missing in your own
earthly father, giving you a love that goes beyond human frailties. Romans 8:14-15 (NIV) tells us what it means
to be a child of God—someone who is led by the Spirit. “Those who are led by the Spirit of God are
sons of God. For you did not receive a spirit that makes you a slave again to
fear, but you received the Spirit of sonship. And by him we cry, ‘Abba, Father.’”
You
can go to seminary and try to grasp the concept of the Trinity—or you can reach
out and take the Father’s hand, walk in fellowship with Jesus, God’s Son, and
live in the power of the Holy Spirit. I
hope that, for you, God is more than a concept—that when you think of God, you
think of the greatest love you’ve ever known.
Join me in this three-week journey into God—and rejoice with me as you
discover the Trinity of Love.
[i] Michael
Catt, Stephen Kendrick, and Alex Kendrick.
Honor Begins at Home: The
Courageous Bible Study. Lifeway
Press: Nashville, TN. 2011.
No comments:
Post a Comment