Can You Believe it?


If the love of a father will not make a child delight in him, what will? Put, then, this to the venture: exercise your thoughts upon this very thing, the eternal, free, and fruitful love of the Father, and see if your hearts be not wrought upon to delight in him. -John Owen
 At the very core of us, who do we believe God to be? I bet that we see God through what we think we know about him, and not what he says about himself. Most of us develop our thoughts of God by what others tell us he is like, or our relationships that represent God to us (pastors, parents, ministers, etc.), and by lies that we believe. The above quote is so striking because it reveals that what we think about God is how we will interact with God. For instance, if we are afraid of him, then we will not come near him. On the other hand, if we know that he is loving, then we will come to him. Think of this in terms of the friends you keep. Have you ever kept a friend you did not love?

God tells us that he is a loving Father in Luke 15:11-31, among other places in Scripture. For once, if we could take God at his word, and set aside the other things that do not agree with how he describes himself, we would find God to be who he says he is. If this is the case, then what is the disconnect. In short, we are! We do not believe God because of all the other competing things that cause unbelief. So, how then, do we expeicence and believe God as he says he is? We choose to believe him, just like we chose to believe in other things.
We have come to know and have believed the love which God has for us -1 John 4:16
  We can know the love of God, and we can believe the love of God. Now that you know it, believe it!

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