Permission to be Radically Loved

The Holy Spirit has asked me a question that has continued to rock my inside world.  The question:  "Would you give Me permission to radically love you?"  Of course, we know the right and religious answer, yet this question stopped me in my tracks as I knew this was a calling to Him at a much deeper level that would require changing my life.  I believe one of the reasons that we struggle with a Father who is completely love, is because of all our earthly experiences of love have fallen far short of this brilliant and extravagant love.  There is only one earthly display of unconditional love, which perfectly reveals the Father's love and that is His sacrifice of His Son Jesus Christ (John 3:16).

Since earth cannot be where we draw our understanding of Father's love, I believe we must look to the reality that is in Heaven to see the brilliance and goodness of His love.  This means the Holy Spirit must cause us to think completely different because all our lives we have learned the measures, limits, and lack of love on the earth.  Those who have experienced poverty when it comes to love, have told us the definition, how love works, and what love can't do.  Don't believe me, why do we ostracize, judge, and seek to distance ourselves from some groups or people?  If we are honest, they scare us with the choices, beliefs, and ways that they live.  Yet 1 John 4:18 says, "...perfect love casts out all fear...", could it be that we have not seen a way to love this people or group who scare us.

I want to propose to you, that there is a fresh revelation of the Father's love coming to His people and to the earth.  In this fresh revelation we will need new language, new creative ways to express, and new ways to think about the outrageous, extravagant, and outlandish love of the Father.  As I look at Scripture I see a love of God that does not fit into my ways of thinking.  I am realizing I am crying out to God for new wine skins (ways of thinking) to hold the new wine (revelation of His love) that He is bringing to my heart.

When in 1 John 3 and other places we are called "Beloved" sons and daughters, God is associating who we are forever with His love for us.  The word "beloved" actually means in the Greek, worthy of love.  How many of us would think from our former state of sin, brokenness, weakness, and character flaws that we are worthy of love?  I would challenge that you don't know yourself if you not seen these things, we all have them.  Yet, we are declared "worthy of love" because of God's great love and power to transform us through Jesus Christ.  I believe being radically loved is the call of every believer, yet how many are willing to open their hearts and lives to experience God at this level.

In Father's Love,
Bret