“If a child asks his father for a loaf of bread, will he be given a stone instead? If he asks for fish, will he be given a poisonous snake? Of course not! And if you hardhearted, sinful men know how to give good gifts to your children, won’t your Father in heaven even more certainly give good gifts to those who ask Him for them?” Matthew 7:9
Roger interrupted our Bible study on this passage of Scripture to say, “I guess I have trouble believing God is a good God because my earthly father was a tyrant. He hated me, and I hated him. I do not recall a single experience in my life where he encouraged me. I want to believe that God is good, but I have difficulty. Please help me.”
Unfortunately, there are multitudes of men and women who are relatively new Christians and who have come from similar backgrounds where there was no love, no compassion, no concern, and their view of God is therefore distorted. They somehow equate the loving, forgiving God with their own tyrannical fathers. When such is the case, only the Holy Spirit can heal these deep wounds and remove these scars. So, I assigned Roger a special project. I asked him to make a list of all the attributes and qualities of God recorded from Genesis to Revelation. The project lasted several months, but in the process a transformation took place in Roger’s life.
Are you having difficulty trusting God because of an unfortunate early relationship with your father or mother? If so, I encourage you to do what Roger did. Saturate your mind with the attributes of God – His love, sovereignty, wisdom, grace, compassion, power and holiness. As you do, the Holy Spirit will use the Word of God to cleanse your mind of all the memories that weigh you down, and you will be able to say with Roger, “I can trust God for anything, because I know He is a loving God who cares for me.”
Bible Reading: 1 John 3:1-3
Today’s Thought: I will continue to meditate upon the attributes of God, knowing that the more I trust Him, the more sure I can be of His faithfulness to enable me to live a supernatural life for His glory.
“I pray that out of his glorious riches he may strengthen you with power through his Spirit in your inner being, so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith. And I pray that you, being rooted and established in love, may have power, together with all the saints, to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ, and to know this love that surpasses knowledge – that you may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God.”
Ephesians 3:17b-19
God’s Word is powerful.
Pray it into your life.
Father in Heaven, What wonderful understanding Your word gives. Today I ask that You would give me strength in my inner being. Sometimes I feel so fragile and weak. Those around me may not know or see but You do and You reach out to strengthen me.
Help me to remember that today I have the living Christ dwelling within me. Remind me that this is my Source today in all I need to face or do.
Lord God, help me to grasp how very much You love me. Help me to see how I am grounded by that love and rooted in it as a anchor for my life. Help me to believe it….. this wonder of Your equipping love in my life that I have access to through Your Spirit.
Remind me of this rich love that You pour over and into my life. Remind me, by Your Spirit, that it is wider and longer and higher and deeper than I can ever imagine. Let me feel wrapped and encased in that love today.
Help me to grasp this truth when I am tempted to despair over my own limited abilities and resources.
Fill me up with a fullness and a completeness that can come from nothing else.
Set me on a journey today to reply on You in every detail of my life. Let me live in the fullness of Your love today like never before. I ask this in the powerful name of Jesus, amen.
Thought: Read the above scripture through every day for 5 days. Let the truth of God’s love steep into your soul.
