Father’s Love 2 – Leave Behavour Orientation, Receive the Glory of the Sons and Daughters
Wednesday, 16th August 2023
Pastor Jin Cheng
When Adam and Eve sinned, they realised they were naked and they felt ashamed. Because they ate the fruits of the tree if good and evil, they started to try to solve their own problems and stopped relying on God. They judged themselves, judged each other, and even judged God. We also use our own judgement to see things, we want to do good according to our own standards, and we want to solve our own problems. We become like orphans, and we reject our Abba Father.
If we are true sons and daughters, we won’t worry about how others see us, we won’t feel ashamed because we know our Father in Heaven doesn’t just love us according to our behaviour or good deeds. We don’t need to be perfect, because we cannot be perfect. The tree of knowledge of good and evil brings the heart of the orphan. Our focus is often being ‘good’ and doing ‘good’, we forgot that we are God’s beloved, made according to His image. It’s never about how well we do, or how much we do.
So firstly, we must be alert and mindful, to see if we have fallen into the snares of self-accusations. I Corinthians 4:4 says, ‘For I know of nothing against myself, yet I am not justified by this; but He who judges me is the Lord.’ We are saved by faith, not by our good behaviour. This is not how we are justified. But we can so easy to judge ourselves, and to judge others. God has forgiven all our sins, so why are we still not forgiving ourselves and why are we still not forgiving others?
When we really hear the Word of God, listen to the Voice of God, then we will hear how much He loves us without we need to do anything in return. I Peter 4:14 days, ‘If you are reproached for the name of Christ, blessed are you, for the Spirit of glory and of God rests upon you. On their part He is blasphemed, but on your part He is glorified.’ If we put everything on our shoulders, then we become god, but Jesus told us our yoke is easy and our burden is light. When we walk with God, He will carry for us, and we don’t need to be burdened.
Ephesians 2:10 says, ‘For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand that we should walk in them.’ God created us, so we must not rely on ourselves but rely on our Creator God. We are His workmanship, He knows us best, and He knows what is best for us to do. When we say we must do good, it means we should do God’s Will, not according to our own will. When we follow God’s Will everyday, we will be moulded by God, and He will make us who He first created us to be.
When we live under the tree of knowledge of good and evil, we only see right and wrong, we don’t see blessings. Our greatest enemy is our perfectionism, because we can never be perfect, and when we always strive to be perfect, we will not feel happy, and we will live in disappointment. When we are a perfectionist, we will put ourselves in a square, we will limit ourselves and see ourselves according to the worldly standards. It will lead to self-accusation and self-condemnation.
Also the tree of knowledge of good and evil will make us want to receive favours from people but not from God. Galatians 1:10 says, ‘For do I now persuade men, or God? Or do I seek to please men? For if I still pleased men, I would not be a bondservant of Christ.’ When we seek to please men, we will never make everyone happy and we will never satisfy everyone. But when we seek to please God, to seek God instead of men, and He will give us everything we need to keep going and to keep striving.
We must learn to receive the glory of the sons and daughters. We have been set free, in Ephesians 1:3, ‘Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places in Christ.’ Do we know God’s blessings are for us everyday? He has given us all the nutrition we need for today, we must drink it and eat it! Then we can grow the Tree of Life within us.
We know we are not perfect, but when we look up, He will make us whole. When we look down we will see defeat, but when we look up then we can see victory. When we choose the have faith in God, He will glorify us.