BASKING IN THE FATHER'S LOVE

DAY ONE TALK ONE
BR. FRITZ MASCARENHAS

“For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him may not perish but may have eternal life. Jn 3:16

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Life without Jesus is not only difficult but it is unbearable this is why we must live each day immersed in the Father's love. If we want solutions to life's problems then then we must live out these truths on a daily basis.  We cannot do it on our own only God makes it possible. There is no instant Christianity we have to make a determined effort everyday to bask in God's love if not, we will fall by the wayside. The most important truth of our faith is that we are God's beloved children and that He loves us with an everlasting love. We must never doubt this truth even though it is not easy to assimilate this truth because the love we have experienced on a human level has been conditional love. We are suffering because as sinners we are expressing conditional love to one another. We look at our weaknesses and our struggle and we doubt the love of God it is then that we feel guilty and condemned and this is the work of the enemy who is constantly accusing us  of our sins. 

The fundamental truth of our faith is that we are the children of God  and the whole purpose of the Incarnation is to bring us into a personal relationship with Jesus and through Jesus to the Father. We ought never to doubt the love of God. It is not easy to assimilate this truth because the love we have experienced by all those who ever loved us in the world has been conditional. We suffer on the horizontal level because as sinners we express conditional love to one another. It is only when we experience the unconditional of the Father that we can love our neighbor as ourselves. The enemy's main aim is to accuse and condemn us when we sin and to make us doubt God's love for us. 

The following are the last words of Jesus before He enters the Garden of Gethsemane:

John 17:25-26

25 Righteous Father, the world has not known you but I have known you, and these have known that you have sent me. 26 As I revealed your Name to them, so will I continue to reveal it, so that the love with which you loved me may be in them and I also may be in them.”

These words of Jesus encapsulate the whole purpose of the incarnation from His conception to His birth, His Life, His passion, His death and glorious Resurrection. These words of Jesus tell us why He came and what this Sacrifice is all about. Why did He go to the Cross? What was the divine purpose for the Father sending His Son to sacrifice His life for us? 

Jesus was faithful to the mission given to Him by His Father which is to reveal to us that God is Father. In no other religion is God addressed as Father. The Jews were infuriated with Jesus because He called God His Father. 

John 5:17
17 Jesus replied, “My Father goes on working and so do I.” 18 And the Jews tried all the harder to kill him, for Jesus not only broke the Sabbath observance, but also made himself equal with God, calling him his own Father.

This was blasphemy to the Jews because He was making Himself equal to God and they wanted to kill him. For the Jews God's Name was so sacred that only the High Priest could say the Name Yahweh on rare occasions. 

When the disciples ask Jesus to teach them to pray He teaches them to address God as Abba.  In the Gospel of John Jesus addresses God constantly as Father and ultimately Philip said to Him, Lord show us the Father  and that is enough and Jesus responds, Philip have I been so long with you and you have still not seen the Father? Anyone who has seen Me has seen the Father.

John 1:18

18 No one has ever seen God,

but God-the-Only-Son made him known:

the one who is in and with the Fa­ther.

If we want to know anything about the Father we have to look at the life of Jesus He is the perfect and complete revelation of the Father.  

In the Garden of Eden as soon as Adam and Eve sins their knowledge of God became distorted as soon as they sinned. They were afraid of the presence of God and hid from Him. We are now conceived with that fear. We are now consumed with that fear this is why we hold back from God we do not throw our lives into God's hands. Authentic charismatic renewal is to have a hunger and thirst to receive more and more of God through the Holy Spirit. It is an ongoing discovery of how we can receive more and more of the life of God in us. 

Jesus tells His disciples that a time will come when they will all run away and leave Him alone but He says that He knows that He is never alone because His Father is always with Him. 

John 16:32

32 The hour is coming, indeed it has come, when you will be scattered, each one to his home, and you will leave me alone. Yet I am not alone, for the Father is with me.

We must have the same conviction that we are  not alone the Father is always with us. This is our consolation. Our life is a journey to our  Father's house. Jesus is our model in flesh and blood. He demonstrates to me how we must live as children of God. We grow more and more in the image and likeness of God. Jesus wants us to experience the same love with which the Father loves Him this His prayer to the Father. When Jesus came to earth He emptied Himself of His divine nature and took on our human nature Jesus is our model, in flesh and blood he demonstrates to me who and what a child of God should be this is the image to which I have to be conformed to. Life is a continual transformation and ongoing conversion more and more into the image and likeness of Jesus. 

Do we see the need for conversion or are we happy the way we are? Do we think we are OK? 

The work of the Spirit is to conform us to Christ and the whole purpose of the incarnation is to reveal God's love for us. God created us first and foremost know Him and to be loved by Him.

1 John 4:19

19 So let us love one another, since he loved us first.

unless we experience this love we cannot love and when we do not love we are living a dysfunctional life because we are created in the image and likeness of God so we are created to love. In order to love we must first experience love. We must cry out to God to fill us with His love this is the air a child of God breathes, this is our existence. To the extent we breathe that air we are alive to love and we become fully human and alive.

The purpose for which God has created us is to be loved by God. When I receive that love I am able to love as well and everything falls into place once we live by this truth.

God wants us to bask in His love to remain in His love. We must remain connected with God who is the Vine and the sap of the Holy Spirit can flow into us. Knowing that God loves me is not enough I must experience it. God is continually demonstrating His love for me. 

John 15:9-12

9 As the Father has loved me, so I have loved you; remain in my love. 10 You will remain in my love if you keep my commandments, just as I have kept my Father’s commandments and remain in his love.

11 I have told you all this, that my own joy may be in you and your joy may be complete. 12 This is my commandment: love one another as I have loved you. 

To experience the love of God we must keep the commandments. 10 You will remain in my love if you keep my commandments, just as I have kept my Father’s commandments and remain in his love. 

Which is the commandment Jesus says in verse 11 11 I have told you all this, that my own joy may be in you and your joy may be complete.

What is this commandment it is revealed in verse 12
12 This is my commandment: love one another as I have loved you.  To experience and tap into the love of God we must love our neighbor as God has loved us. We cannot love our neighbor unless we forgive him. To experience love vertically we must love horizontally. 

If we want to experience God's love we must first forgive and pray for the good of the one who has hurt us until we can truly forgive.  In John 14:15 Jesus says, "If you love me keep my commandments."

Our obedience and surrender to God, our love for God is directly proportionate to our experience of His love for us. We commit sin because His love does not satisfy us completely so we say no to God and yes to our selfish desires. If we want to come out of sin and be holy we must draw from the love of God, we must receive the love of God. As we release forgiveness in prayer the poison is drained from our heart and we can come into a right relationship with God. We must pray for those who hurt us and we will discover that the more we have a living with Jesus the more will we be able to share His love with others. 

The only way God can reveal Himself to us in a life-giving way is only when we keep His commandments. 

John 14:21
21 Whoever keeps my commandments is the one who loves me. If he loves me, he will also be loved by my Father; I too shall love him and show myself clearly to him.” 

We must learn to say no to sin and yes to God.  The only way we can keep the commandments is by opening ourselves to the love God. When we truly love Him we will want to please Him and delight Him by our obedience to His commandments. When we say Yes to God He will give us an ongoing revelation of Himself. 

The love of God like wings help us to rise above earthly cares. Our vocation is to be loved by God. 

The love of God is not mystical it is real and can be experienced in very real and concrete ways. It is down to earth and practical – Jesus was constantly reaching out to suffering humanity. He met the people where they were and He not only saw their need but met every single one of them. The Father is concerned about our needs as well and He answers every single one of them.

When we see Jesus working in our simple everyday life we know that Jesus is real. We have to know in practical ways how to listen to Jesus and follow Him. We must look to Jesus for a solution to our problems. 

In Matthew 10:29-31 Jesus says, 29 For only a few cents you can buy two sparrows, yet not one sparrow falls to the ground without your Father’s consent. 30 As for you, every hair of your head has been counted. 31 So do not be afraid: you are worth much more than many sparrows.

God considers us so precious St. Peter says in 1 Peter 1:18-19 18 Remember that you were freed from the useless way of life of your ancestors, not with gold and silver 19 but with the precious blood of the Lamb without spot or blemish. that we have been ransomed not with silver and gold but with the spotless blood of the Lamb of God who brings us from the kingdom of darkness into the kingdom of light. 

Every hair on our head is numbered. Believe and trust the Father's love. Nothing is more insignificant in our life than the hair on our head and Jesus is saying that what is insignificant for us is not insignificant to Him and He wants us to know that there is no area in our life that God is unaware of or not concerned about. That is why we need never be worried or afraid because the Father loves us and will provide for us. 

Our journey to God is a calling by God to return to His loving care where we belong, living in His house, loved, protected and nurtured by Him. Life in loving union with the Father is Christianity. We must be carried along by the Father's love and go where He wants us to be trusting in His loving will for our life. 

St. Paul's prayer for the Christians in Ephesus: 
Ephesians 3:14-20

14 And now I kneel in the presence of the Father 15 from whom every family in heaven and on earth has received its name.

16 May he strengthen in you the inner self through his Spirit, according to the riches of his glory;

17 may Christ dwell in your hearts through faith;

may you be rooted and found­ed in love.

18 All of this so that you may understand with all the holy ones the width, the length, the height and the depth—in a word, 19 that you may know the love of Christ that surpasses all knowledge, that you may be filled and reach the fullness of God.

20 Glory to God who shows his power in us and can do much more than we could ask or imagine; 21 glory to him in the Church and in Christ Jesus through all generations for ever and ever. Amen.

Verse 14-15: In the name that God has given us our vocation and our purpose for our entire life falls into place. 

Verse 16-17 We are weak and in humility, we must make our weaknesses known to the Holy Spirit and ask Him to strengthen us from within. We must be rooted in the love of God and we must experience it on every level and on every dimension. God wants to fill us with His riches and partake in His glory so we can be filled with the fullness of God. 

Do we experience this fullness in our lives?  What are our priorities?

Verse 18-20 We must pray and ask God to help us to open ourselves to receive this love so we can be fulfilled and happy. We must make use of all the channels of grace available to us in the Church in the Sacraments, the Scriptures, prayer meeting, acts of mercy etc., which will fill us with the life and love of God. When we are fulfilled and transformed, we must reach out in love to others.

Finally, let us remember what St. Paul tells us in Romans 8:16 God has not given us a spirit of slavery but a spirit of sonship enabling us to call God Abba Father. The experience of the reality of God's love in the Holy Trinity is the key to all our problems only a live lived in Christ can make our own lives worthwhile. If we desire to spend eternity with God let us not remain strangers to Him.