Building Your Life on the Father’s Love

In the story of Josiah, His father, Amon, followed the sinful ways of Manasseh, serving idols and turning away from God. Yet when Josiah became king, Scripture says that he did what was right in the sight of the Lord and walked in the ways of his father David. He refused to allow the failures of the generations immediately before him to determine the direction of his own life.

Our past does not have to become the blueprint for our future.

You Are Not Defined by Your Past

It is easy to continually look backward at what our parents did, what happened during our childhood, what mistakes were made around us, or what patterns existed in previous generations. When our attention remains fixed there, we can begin to see ourselves as victims of what happened before us.

But in Christ, we have been brought into a new identity and a new freedom. The focus is no longer supposed to remain on the old man, but on the new man. What is needed is the renewing of our minds so that we learn to walk according to who we now are in Christ.

Like Josiah, we can choose whose ways we will follow.

The call is to shift our attention toward the Father.

The Father Loves You Because You Are His

First John 3:1 tells us:

“Behold what manner of love the Father has bestowed on us, that we should be called children of God.”

The Father’s love is parental. A father does not wait for his child to perform before beginning to love that child. Even before the child is born, before they have accomplished anything, before they have obeyed or disappointed him, love already exists simply because the child belongs to him.

This is the picture given of the Father’s love toward us.

God does not love us because we performed well enough to earn His affection. He loves us because we are His.

His love did not begin after we became righteous. It did not increase when we became more obedient. His love is not something He is gradually learning to give us.

He loves us. That is the starting point.

This means we do not need to compare ourselves with someone else and assume that their blessings prove that God loves them more. Someone else's breakthrough does not mean you are loved less. Someone else's testimony does not mean you have been forgotten. The Father's love is not measured by comparison.

His Love Was Already Demonstrated

Sometimes we wait for something to happen before we will believe that God loves us.

We think:

“If this prayer is answered, then I will know He loves me.” or “If this breakthrough comes, then I will know.”

But Romans 5 tells us that God has already demonstrated His love toward us: while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.

The cross is the Father's demonstration. It's redundant to continually demand new proof for something God has already established through Christ.

When circumstances are difficult, when an answer seems delayed, or when we have been waiting for years for something to change, the circumstances must not become the measurement of God's love.

Our attention must return to the cross. There we see what the Father was willing to give. There we see the value He placed upon us. There we see love revealed.

Let Truth Become the Foundation

Feelings change and circumstances change. Some days are good and some days are difficult. There may be moments where we strongly sense God's presence and moments where we do not feel anything at all.

If our understanding of God's love is built on feelings, our relationship with Him will constantly rise and fall with them.

Instead, we must establish ourselves on truth:

The Father loves me. That truth becomes the foundation.

From there, our feelings can eventually begin to align with what we know. Our relationship becomes stable because it is no longer dependent on today's circumstances.

Sunday's session puts it plainly: we should not build our relationship with God on how we feel, but on truth. As that truth becomes established, we begin to know, experience and discover the Father's love more deeply.

Shift Your Focus

The real battle is often one of attention. We can focus endlessly on what is wrong with us, what happened to us, what has not changed yet, or what other people are experiencing. Or we can turn our attention toward the Father.

Focus on who He is. Focus on what He has already done. Focus on the love demonstrated through Christ.

The more our minds are renewed around these truths, the more stable our walk with God becomes.

We can celebrate when others prosper without feeling forgotten. We can walk through difficult seasons without questioning whether God still cares. We can pray without constantly wondering whether we are worthy of being heard, because the foundation has already been settled: We are loved.

The Father does not love one child more than another. His love is not earned by performance or cancelled by a difficult season.

When our lives are rooted in the truth of the Father's love, we stop allowing our past, our circumstances and our emotions to define our relationship with God.

We begin to walk as sons and daughters who know exactly who their Father is.

Watch the full session here.