My Father in Heaven is Perfect

From that first Valentine in kindergarten, our hopes were raised that someone might possibly love us. Throughout the following years of break ups and disappointments and sometimes even marriages that fail, we often become disillusioned that there even is such a thing as love and settle for numbing out with our addictions instead. When no one else seems to care, we turn to them for comfort, not realizing that whatever enslaves or controls us can never truly love us.  We say to ourselves that if we can just find one person who really loves us, we will finally know we are okay. We really are okay and we have actually been loved all along, but our problem is that we do not trust God.

The biggest reason for this is a misunderstanding of God’s character. For four thousand years, God tried to convey His love to the human race in many different ways. He took out all the gods of Egypt so that people could realize that He alone was the one who could help them. (Exodus 12:12). Other times, God allowed some people to lose their temporary lives in order to protect others from losing eternal life. By doing things that His enemy could misconstrue and twist as a lack of love, God took the rap for many sad events often scaring the very people He was trying woo. When we chose to view God’s character through Jesus, we can reframe the Old Testament events and lose our fear as we come to understand God. We can realize that the flood is not an example of God punishing, but rather God patiently allowing people to live out their evil ways until only one man was left speaking with Him. Even God’s chosen people, the ones who were to represent Him to the world, misconstrued His character so badly, that they often portrayed God to be more like His enemy, than the loving God that He truly is. As all the distortions and misunderstandings about Him culminated, God finally became human so that we could get a close up of what He’s really like.

In 1 Corinthians 13, Paul gave us a description of love, since God Himself is the source of all love (1 John 4:16), this is a description of God Himself:

God is patient, God is kind, God envies no one, God does not boast, God is not proud. God is not rude, God is not self-seeking, God is not easily angered, God keeps no record of wrongs. God does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. God always protects, God always trusts, God always hopes, God always perseveres. God never fails.

Any contradictory picture of God is made up of lies from the devil who wants to separate us from God’s love by spreading lies about Him. But Jesus, who is the exact representation of the Father (Heb. 1:3) came to destroy the devil’s work (1 John 3:8). Even while we were blatantly sinning, God still loved us and sent Jesus to let us know that God is indeed love. (2 Corinthians 5:19). Jesus is God incarnate and God is the epitome of love!

So if you are feeling lonely or low on love this holiday, remember there is someone that we can always trust Who really love us with an unconditional love. Even when it seems like no one else cares, we have a friend that sticks closer than a brother or even a lover. Calling out to us, God says:

"I have loved you with an everlasting love; I have drawn you with loving-kindness.” Jeremiah 31:3

For broken-hearted lovers like us, that is really good news!

Cherilyn Christen Clough

www.myfatherinheavenisperfect.com