How Does the Father Love Us?

Dustin Crowe:

It’s remarkable how difficult it can be to let ourselves be loved by God. For many of us, the love of Jesus comes through loud and clear, but God the Father often seems distant or looming. Many of our perceptions of God have been distorted by earthly shadows—fathers, employers, leaders, etc. To move forward in loving and being loved by God, we must replace our false ideas with biblically-saturated truth.

God’s attributes—including love—aren’t like human traits that strengthen or weaken nor are they like moods that come and go. God is all of his attributes perfectly, all the time. And yet, we still struggle to believe it can be true, that this great God can love us messy and stumbling sinners. Sometimes we don’t feel his love on a day to day basis like we desire, so walls of doubt begin to shut him out. Other times we unwittingly read the Word not through the lens of his love and grace to us in Christ, but through tinted lens of condemnation and guilt.

My hope is that by dwelling on God’s love for us, we’ll move from a general and vague idea to a sweet and personal experience. God desires as much, and once the fountain of the Father’s love is opened we’ll find ourselves stepping into new streams of gratitude, contentment, joy, and security. Here are seven examples from the New Testament of how God clearly and convincingly displays his fatherly love to his children.

1. THE FATHER’S LOVE IN SENDING

2. THE FATHER’S LOVE IN REVEALING

3. THE FATHER’S LOVE IN ADOPTING

4. THE FATHER’S LOVE IN COMFORTING

5. THE FATHER’S LOVE IN GIVING

6. THE FATHER’S LOVE IN PROMISING

7. THE FATHER’S LOVE IN DISCIPLINING

Read the entire post here.