Daddy's Favorite

I feel bad that I haven't posted in several days, but everything I want to write about really should have pictures to go along with it, and I'm not real savvy on the picture thing yet on a different computer, so I'm waiting for assistance. I will try to get more up real soon! But until then I thought I'd share about something God is working on with me right now. I am doing a devotional of the book "Hinds Feet On High Places". This is an excellent book; I've read it several times and every time I read it I get a new and deeper application. It's an allegory, and I absolutely love allegories because they're full of analogies, and I love analogies! The comparison of familiar things that we can see and touch and experience to spiritual truths can really connect things between the mind and the heart. It's the story of a girl named Much Afraid, who could be any of us. She lives in a valley where she serves the Chief Shepherd (Jesus). But she comes from the Fearing family. She has a bundle of depressing relatives: Gloomy, Spiteful, Pride, Craven Fear, Self-Pity, Resentment... you get the picture. They are her "demons"; we all have them. She is also crippled in her feet and disfigured. She loves the Shepherd but is still bound by these fears and blemishes and so He invites her to take a journey to the High Places in the Kingdom of Love where He will give her hinds feet and cause Love to grow and bear fruit in her heart. The recent devotional thoughts in the book have talked about our Father's love, acceptance, and grace even as we are under the enemy's attack and paralyzed by our weaknesses. Today's reading invited me to stop and just think about God's love and acceptance of me until I am resting in that security, to talk to Him just like a child to their father. So I began telling Him honestly how I feel about the whole acceptance and approval thing; I know what the Bible says, that God made me accepted in the Beloved, through His grace, and I can agree with the truth in my head all the time, but I've been telling Him that my actual beliefs, based on my feelings, are another story. I always think that i have to impress God. If I want to Him to actually be pleased with me and favor me, I have to get things right. I have to get in the Word and meditate on it enough. I have to pray enough with fervor and passion for everyone and everything. If I really want to know God's will and follow Him and be a faithful servant I have to study and get amazing insights and fast and cry out and get serious enough that God will be impressed and take me seriously. I just can't let go of the belief that if I am going to break out of my fears and everything that holds me back and have God's power let loose and know my life counts for God's kingdom, it depends on me. Basically I have this misconception that I have to pass some spiritual test and prove myself to God. But you know what God showed me? I'm on the same bandwagon with those guys in Hinduism or whatever religion it is where they whipped themselves, laid on beds of nails, cut themselves with knives, and made pilgrimages to some faraway holy place walking on their knees! In fact it's the same mindset that every religion on the face of this planet lives by and thereby condemns themselves to death. The unchangeable, unstoppable, untameable, indescribable God Who is God alone, Who sits on the throne over all principalities and powers, He is not a religion. He is a living, breathing, loving, creating God Who holds all things in His hands and Who longs for a deep, sizzling, personal relationship with you and me because that's what He made us for!!! That is my Father. I hope He is yours, too. He approves me and favors me not for anything I do or don't do, but because when He looks at me, He sees His beloved Son. Jesus Christ has clothed me in His righteousness and filled me with His own life; how could God ever love me less? Do you feel the weight of what this means? If you are born again by the incorruptible seed of the Holy Spirit, God loves you exactly the way He loves His only begotten Son; you are His favored one! Now my Father loves me so much He went beyond that and gave me a picture; take a look at this.

This is a brand new me in my daddy's arms. Every time I look at this photo I get this incredible feeling; I feel cherished. I feel special. I feel like Daddy's favorite. You can see the wonder and the tender love in his face, in the way he's cradling me. Now just a note to my siblings: this is not saying that Daddy loves me best. Yes, there is a special distinction to being the firstborn, the first one to elicit such awe. That's just to make up for everything else I've put up with! :) LOL; love you guys! But seriously, to a father who knows his children are gifts from God, each one of a kind, every one is his favorite. There's no rational way to explain it, but a father's heart always has room for one more. And his love is just as deep for number 9 as it is for number 1. I know not everyone has had an earthly father who cherished them. I would never downplay that pain. But God is the one Father who has room in His heart for every person in the world and every one of His children is His favorite. He looks at you with with that same unconditional, adoring, amazed love. Not because you worked hard and earned it. Not because you deserve it. Not because you're more beautiful or more intelligent or more gifted or more anything than anybody else. Did I do anything to merit such love from my Dad? Did I work to become me in the womb; did I bring myself into the world; did I have anything to offer to my Mom and Dad when I arrived? Nope. Only a helpless, needy, demanding person, totally at their mercy. It's simply because you're His. You are one of a kind, created to love and be loved. You're God's favorite you. I'm His favorite me. But most of all it's because you and I bear the image of Jesus Christ, the Beloved Son. That will never, ever depend on what good we have done, or what evil we have conquered, or anything we could make of ourselves. That depends on the FINISHED work of Jesus on the cross; He is the firstborn from the dead, the forerunner of all God's new creations, and because of what He did for you and me, if we've received His grace (undeserved favor) through faith, we are sons and daughters of God and partakers of His inheritance! Hallelujah! Now I'm excited! Just think about it people; really think about it! Ask your Father to show you if it's really true. He will not let you down! Man, if anybody's seen Fruitcake and Ice Cream by Louie Giglio, you'll understand that I'm going a little bit crazy right now! That's God! He's so cool! And I pray for each of you tonight that God will show you how MUCH He loves you, that you will be able to comprehend (and believe) with all the saints what is the width and length and depth and height; to know the love of Christ that passes knowledge, that you may be filled with all the fullness of God. Now to Him who is able to do exceedingly abundantly above all that we ask or think, according to the power that works in us, to Him be glory...forever and ever. Amen. (Eph. 3:18-21) And that's all for now...from Daddy's favorite. :)