A Father’s Love | June 14

Start your day with a short, Scripture-centered devotional from Paul Michael. In about seven minutes, you will hear the Word, reflect on its truth, and be encouraged to live it out in everyday life.

A Father’s Love | Romans 8

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Transcript

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Welcome to your weekly devotional with me, PMV. We've been doing a daily devotional in the past. Right now we're doing weekly for a little break this summer. I hope to resume the daily devotionals in July and maybe even have some more information about expanding this teaching ministry. But for today, as we begin this week on Monday, we're looking towards Father's Day. That's what's coming up this next Sunday. So I want to take a few minutes to talk to you about Father's Day in light of how God the Father has revealed Himself, His love for us, and His purpose and His plan for our lives. So today we're going to look very briefly at Romans chapter 8. Okay, in Romans chapter 8, there's so much. You could do a whole sermon series at last, weeks and weeks and weeks on this whole chapter, but I want to read just the last part that after talking about what God has done for us in Christ, he says then, Paul says in verse 31, what then shall we say to these things? If God is for us, who can be against us? And when he's saying God being for us, he's referencing how God the Father gave God the Son for our salvation. And he's saying, so understanding what the Father has done, and if he is for us, then who can be against us? He who did not spare his own son, but delivered him up for us, how shall he not with him also freely give us all things? He's saying, look, if God has already given his son, if he's given the best, if he's provided a means of your salvation, do you really think there's anything good that God will withhold from you that you truly need? No, there is a loving Father that wants to supply your needs. He says in verse 33, who shall bring a charge against God's elect? It is God who justifies, who is he who condemns? It is Christ who died and furthermore is also risen, who is even at the right hand of God, who also makes intercession for us, who shall separate us from the love of Christ shall tribulation or distress or persecution or famine or nakedness or peril or sword, as it is written, for your sake we are killed all day long. We are accounted as sheep for the slaughter. Yet in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. For I am persuaded that neither death nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor height, nor depth, nor any other created thing shall be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord. Okay, real briefly today, what I want us to look at is the big picture of the love of God, of God the Father. Because I think that there are many of us who have different conceptions. There are many different conceptions of what God as a father could mean. Also, your experience with your earthly father can relate to your relationship with your heavenly father. Maybe some of you are adopted. You've never known your earthly father. Maybe some of you were abused by your earthly father. Maybe some of you were abandoned by your earthly father. Maybe you had a great relationship with your earthly father. Maybe you had a father that taught you the ways of the Lord and instructed you. There could be very different circumstances when you talk from person to person to person. But we need to understand that we also live in a spiritual battle. Satan knows that if we truly understand the love of God, it will be a great source of strength to our lives. And so what happens is we have sinful, harmful, hurtful things that happen in this world. People make poor choices. Even the best dads make poor choices. Those things they do, even if they don't intend to, that end up hurting their children. And so what Satan wants to do is he doesn't play fair. He loves to take the failures of our earthly fathers and try to put that off on God as if that's how God treats us. But scripture speaks a different truth. Scripture says, no, God loves you. He's demonstrated his love in giving his best for you. And if you understand what he has done for you in Christ, then you don't have anything to worry about. There's a great confidence to your life knowing that you have a heavenly Father who loves you, who will supply your need, who cares for you, who is making you more like Jesus, who is watching over you. He loves you, and there's nothing that can separate you from his love. So as we enter into Father's Day weekend coming up, I acknowledge there's many different walks of life, perspectives that we have on Father's and on Father's Day. Some of you, maybe you recently lost your earthly father, and this is a hard time. Maybe you're even grieving. But the answer to all of these is to understand the love of our Heavenly Father as Scripture shows us, as Christ has shown us, to realize the truth of God, that He made us, He loves us, He calls us to Himself, that through Christ we can spend an eternity with a Heavenly Father who loves you, who's preparing a place for you. And when we realize that, when we accept that, it gives strength to our life now to realize that I am living as a child of God, as a dearly loved child of God, as one who my Father delights in. That I can, no matter what maybe my background has been with an earthly father, I can know this loving heavenly father. I can walk with him now, and I can know that he has a heavenly future prepared for me. As I put my faith in Christ, as I receive the forgiveness of sins, as I receive the gift of his spirit, I can know that God is with me now and that heaven is my home. I pray again as we go through this week and go into this Father's Day weekend, that no matter what your background is, I pray that you will know the love of God and that you will be able to rest in that this week and really each and every day, and allow the love of God to strengthen your life, to strengthen your heart, to give you a confidence that no matter what happens in this life, there is a loving Father who is near. Thank you for watching this. Thank you for listening, whatever platform you're on. I hope that you'll continue to come back. Maybe give us a like or subscribe or hit the notification bell to be alerted of new content. But mostly I just pray this has been a blessing to you today. Thank you for watching, listening. For more information, go to pnv ministries.org and I hope you have a great day.