Have you felt God’s love coming back to you recently?
In the novel, The Gift, Pete Hamill ends the story by saying, “I hadn’t received much for Christmas in any ordinary way; but my father loved me back, and there was no other gift I wanted.”
For the first time that December, the son on leave from boot camp, risked entering his father’s sanctuary (a bar). As it turned out they fought together defending the honor of a lady. Partnership, respect and pride had passed between them. It’s what happens when we pray.
In Romans 8, Paul tells us that the Spirit ‘helps our weakness,’ literally meaning that he picks up the other end of an object we can’t carry ourselves. When we approach prayer correctly, we are partnering with His Spirit, interceding in the will of God. Prayer brings the child and the Father together, to fight the imps whose foul words and disrespect needs to be put in place. Together, Father and child, we stand back to back, fighting for the dignity and destiny of a generation.
When you step on campus, you’re back to back with your Father, fighting for students to wake up!
When you share your faith across the table at yet another fast food joint, you’re not getting indigestion, you’re standing over the enemy after a knock out punch, looking into your Father’s eyes and knowing His great love toward you.
It’s the joy I sense in abandoning my will to Him in worship, holding out my heart as though it’s all I can give, and feeling as though God is saying…
’I love you, not your worship.
I love you, not your service.
I love you, the person I created, and the person I redeemed.
We are standing together you and I, back to back, and the fight is the thing. Obey me, and you’ll feel the pleasure of my presence, and especially know how proud I am of you. I will love you back, if you risk my sanctuary.
To know God is to know His love. Enter His sanctuary and the Spirit will help you see the Father beam.
Anyway, isn’t that all we ever really wanted?
