Perspective Changes Everything
By: Tim Kelley, Fellowship Bible Church NWA, Celebrate Recovery Devotional Team, and TEAM Training Coach 6/6/18
“God is love, and all who live in love live in God, and God lives in them. And as we live in God, our love grows more perfect. So we will not be afraid on the day of judgment, but we can face him with confidence because we live like Jesus here in this world. Such love has no fear, because perfect love expels all fear. If we are afraid, it is for fear of punishment, and this shows that we have not fully experienced his perfect love.”
1 John 4:16-18 NLT
Can I be honest? There was a time when these verses, above, were so hard for me to hear or read. The reason was that I was always in fear of judgment. My view of the Father at that time would not, and could not, allow me to see Him as anything but a harsh judge. This was my view because I had not dealt rightly with my sins, character defects, hurts, habits and hang-ups. I was carrying them, I was trying to make myself righteous, trying to earn my way into His love. Somehow, some way I had bought into the lie that there was no way the Father could love me because of my sin and that at best, He was just tolerating me. Looking back now, I see that my sin, my addiction to porn, had so warped my view of who the Father was and how He loved me that all I could see was a coming judgment that I knew was not going to end well for me. There was fear, it wasn’t cast out, it was there, I could feel it growing and if that was the case, then obviously I hadn’t earned the Father’s love yet. Even my attempts at vocational ministry could not stand against the fear that was raging a war inside my very soul. So I avoided these verses because to me they were a reminder of how hopeless I was.
Then 12 years ago this changed. Well actually, a change was started. It started with me dealing rightly with my sin. This meant acknowledging it, admitting it to the Father, myself and others and then surrendering myself into the hands of the Father, the very one I that I had been in such fear of receiving judgment from. As I realized that my attempts to make myself righteous were really just insanity, I began to understand how desperately I was in need of understanding the true nature of the Father and letting go of the lie that I had bought into years earlier. I began to see, as the Bible says, that His kindness was continually leading me to turn away from my sin. This was something that my attempts to be righteous or my fear of judgment could never do! I looked full into the face of Christ on the cross and saw that there was a choice made on my behalf, a choice that was made before even the foundations of the universe were laid. I was in awe at what I had missed seeing all these years, even after Bible College and years in vocational ministry preaching and teaching God’s Word. I saw how blind I was and I had everything all twisted up. At that point, I laid everything down at the foot of the cross where it and I belonged and began to I lift my hands and head in surrender. That surrender has been a process and each day I see just a little more of the true nature of the Father.
Today I don’t see the Father as a harsh judge, but rather as a kind Father who seems bent on me experiencing His love for me. I used to see myself pursued by the Father as if He was trying to capture me to punish me. Today I see myself as pursued by the Father knowing that He is trying to capture me to express His love for me.
Recently in my reading, I came across these verses again and this time it was like I was reading something I had never read before. The words were the same, but I was different. How I was seeing the Father was different. How I was understanding how He saw me was different. In fact, instead of wanting to just skip over them as in the past, I found that I have been just reflecting on them continually for the last several days. I noticed the fear was cast out! It really caught me by surprise! I wasn’t reminded of how hopeless I was, instead, I could see how much I was loved! I noticed that the war that raged in my soul that the fear had caused was gone, in its stead there was peace, serenity, and dare I say it, JOY!! I am laughing at myself right now because I think I just heard the Father giggle again.
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