Last June, I was in Atlanta, Georgia for the release of Dr. Steve McVey’s newest book “Beyond An Angry God”.  Along with Steve, special guests C. Baxter Kruger and Wm. P. Young (author of The Shack) shared in 13 sessions that unpacked the lie that God is not angry with us.  If you have not read the book, it is a ‘must read’ especially if you are hungry for a much better and deeper understanding of God’s love towards you and everyone else (visit www.gracewalk.org or www.beyondanangrygod.com ).  It will resonate with the truth already ‘in you’ that your heavenly Papa is absolutely loving and accepting and there is nothing left to do in order to be made right with Him.

It was through Christ on the Cross that the world was reconciled to God.  It was God the Father who was IN CHRIST reconciling the world to himself.  This was a done deal, meaning, it is now finished.  There is nothing left to do.  What will your response be to the good news?  Will you believe it, or reject it?  Your response will determine what you will experience.

During the “Beyond An Angry God” conference, I discovered a profound personal truth that is changing my mind about how I see Papa God, and how I see my world around me, especially my family.

The Trinity Submits To Us:  that is a strange statement.  I thought it was the other way around!  The fact is, we DO submit to the Trinity, but only because They submitted to us first!  They modelled it by submitting themselves to the Romans and Jewish leaders to have Jesus whipped, beaten and killed.  They submitted knowing full well what was going to transpire. The most profound thing that happened was, as Wm. P. Young said, “we (Trinity) are submitting to you but as we do, we are taking you down with us.”  It was in the submission of the Trinity to humanity, that the greatest miracle happened.  When Jesus died, we died.  When Jesus rose from the dead, we rose from the dead.  We have been made into a NEW creation, a new species!!  All this happened without our giving God permission!!  (*remember, it was while we were still sinners, blind to the fact we needed ‘saving’…that Jesus died for us)  They modelled for us what relationships are to look like.  Mutual submission.

Jesus said that he didn’t come to be served, but rather that he came to serve!  What an amazing perspective.  Today, as our perspective of our heavenly Father becomes clearer, may our response to His love also become clearer.  As Paul Anderson Walsh said it, our own responsibility to the father’s love is ‘our ability to respond’.  How will you respond today?

Here is how I responded:  When i came home from the conference, God put it clearly on my heart that as Jesus submitted to this world, became a man, and became known to others.  he also took time to ‘know’ the people around him.  He entered their world and felt their pain, cried with their loss, and experienced every emotion that humanity experiences.  He did not come to ‘change people’s behaviours’, although that can and usually is the fruit that comes from really knowing the love of Christ.  Instead, he came to bring to an end those things that hindered our perspective of His heavenly Father.  Humanity had a very wrong picture of who they believed God the Father to be.  It was Jesus who said, if you have seen me, you have seen the Father.  The Father and I are one.

With this perspective, I heard a small voice in my mind say to me that in that same way, I need to enter my home and submit to my family.  Know them and be known by them.  Don’t try to change them, just love them.  Drop all expectations I have put on them, and instead learn to relate to them.  My lens through which I see my family has now radically changed.  What that looks like practically is changing as we speak.  I’ve not arrived, but I am learning and growing in this.  I want to see as Jesus sees.  I want to love as Jesus loved.  I want to love my family in the same way.

Questions For The Day:

1. What does it make you feel like knowing The Trinity was secure enough in themselves and in their love to submit to man?
2. How do you view your family, spouse, or friends?  are you trying to change them? or are you able to simply love and accept them.
3. We love, because He first loved us.  What does that mean to you?

Scripture Verse of the Day:

1 John 4  16 We know how much God loves us, and we have put our trust in his love. God is love, and all who live in love live in God, and God lives in them. 17 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. 18 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. 19 We love each other[b] because he loved us first.

Mark 10:45  (NLT)  45 For even the Son of Man came not to be served but to serve others and to give his life as a ransom for many.”

Video of the Day:

Amazing Love – Chris Tomlin  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EwoCbcSXlSM

Prayer:

Heavenly Father, open my eyes to first see how deeply you love me.  Then, in your good time, love others through me with that same love.  May my eyes change from a perspective of judgement, to one of compassion and acceptance.