I in them and you in me—so that they may be brought to complete unity. Then the world will know that you sent me and have loved them even as you have loved me. (John 17:23 NIV)
And hope does not put us to shame, because God’s love has been poured out into our hearts through the Holy Spirit, who has been given to us. (Romans 5:5 NIV)

On Jesus' last evening before he was led away to the cross, he knew exactly what he was going to face over the coming hours. He knew the pain and the agony, he knew the betrayal and he knew that he would come through it after the resurrection. Humanly speaking, this was not something to look forward to. 

During this evening he shares a meal with his disciples and, we read through John's gospel account, that his focus was on them and their wellbeing rather than on the troubles he was facing. He wants them to know that his Father is with them and that they are loved in exactly the same way as he is loved. Irrespective of what is happening, they are loved with an eternal and everlasting love. The Father is pouring his love into their hearts, just as he pours it into Jesus' heart.

Throughout this evening he reassures his friends that they are unconditionally and completely loved.

It is that same love which is poured into our hearts. We, too, are loved by the Father in exactly the same way and with the same intensity of love as Jesus. I encourage you to take a few moments to receive this love. As you go through today simply ask the Father to pour his love into your heart.

I am pleased to announce the launch of my new book, "It Changes Everything". This book explores the revelation of the Father's love and how, when we live in love, we can truly begin to walk as Jesus walked. I trust it will be a provocation to you to begin a lifelong journey of going deeper into the Father's love. As you do, you will discover that His love really does change everything.

The book is available on Amazon and also available in Kindle format.

The eternal God is your refuge, and underneath are the everlasting arms. He will drive out your enemies before you, saying, ‘Destroy them!’ (Deuteronomy 33:27 NIV)
My Father, who has given them to me, is greater than all; no one can snatch them out of my Father’s hand. (John 10:29 NIV)

Last week I touched on the way the Father longs to carry us. Yes, of course he will take our burdens from us but he longs to do so much more. He wants to carry us in the way a father carries his son and he promises to carry us all the way. We never get too heavy for him. 

At the end of Moses' life he once again reminds the people that they are being carried by their Father. We are constantly surrounded by his everlasting arms. He is a strong powerful God but he carries us tenderly and gently. Life is often tough and we realise we can't manage on our own. We feel attacked from all sides, we feel under pressure but we constantly have the assurance that he is faithful and is carrying us through the turbulence of life's ups and downs. 

Sometimes, to know that place of peace and rest we have to let go. Our own determination and struggle can hinder us from finding our place of safety in his arms. We can depend on him. He will carry us and we are safe with him. 

I am pleased to announce the launch of my new book, "It Changes Everything". This book explores the revelation of the Father's love and how, when we live in love, we can truly begin to walk as Jesus walked. I trust it will be a provocation to you to begin a lifelong journey of going deeper into the Father's love. As you do, you will discover that His love really does change everything.

The book is available on Amazon and also available in Kindle format.

For he chose us in him before the creation of the world to be holy and blameless in his sight. In love he predestined us to receive the full rights of sonship through Jesus Christ, in accordance with his pleasure and will. (Ephesians 1: 4-5 NIV)
The Lord your God, who is going before you, will fight for you, as he did for you in Egypt, before your very eyes, and in the wilderness. There you saw how the Lord your God carried you, as a father carries his son, all the way you went until you reached this place. (Deuteronomy 31: 30-31 NIV)

It's easy to say that we are children of God. It's almost as easy as referring to children in a class at school. We see it functionally, rather than as a relationship. 

Here in Ephesians, Paul is bringing us back to the centrality of the gospel. Before the world was created the Father had a plan and that plan was to have a family. A family of sons and daughters who would be like his son, Jesus. A family that he would love in the same way as he loves Jesus. 

This has never stopped being his plan and he does everything to bring that plan into existence. He longs for relationship with us and this is far more important to him than our activity or busyness. As Christians we have been give the right to become children of God. Children to whom the Father relates intimately. 

It is his desire to be involved in every area and activity of our lives. Too often, when we hit a crisis, we want him to take our burdens from us and carry them. Yes, he will do that, but he longs to do much more. He wants to carry us as a father carries his son. His promise to us is that he will carry us all the way. He is totally reliable and will never let us down because he is a Father who cares deeply for his children. 

And he passed in front of Moses, proclaiming, “The Lord, the Lord, the compassionate and gracious God, slow to anger, abounding in love and faithfulness, maintaining love to thousands, and forgiving wickedness, rebellion and sin. (Exodus 34: 6-7 NIV)
The Lord is compassionate and gracious, slow to anger, abounding in love. He will not always accuse, nor will he harbour his anger forever; he does not treat us as our sins deserve or repay us according to our iniquities. For as high as the heavens are above the earth, so great is his love for those who fear him; as far as the east is from the west, so far has he removed our transgressions from us. (Psalm 103: 8-12 NIV)

Moses is facing the huge challenge of leading the people of Israel away from Egypt and towards the Promised Land. Not an easy task by any standard! It certainly wasn't helped by the people's unwillingness or their rebellion. In his desperation, Moses needed an encounter with the Lord. He needed to know who, and what, was going to enable him to do this impossible job. 

It would be easy to say the people needed strong and decisive leadership or that they needed a rule book to help them through. Maybe they needed a master or an army office to give them orders. 

In Moses' encounter with the Lord he receives a revelation of the nature and personality of God the Father. Firstly he is compassionate, then gracious, slow to anger and abounding in love. God reveals himself to his people in the only way he could: as a loving Father. A theme later repeated by the Psalmist. 

And this is how he continues to reveal himself to us. His compassion is stirred within him and so anger and judgement are put to one side as we are drawn into the arms of a compassionate Father. He is loving us with immeasurable love that is totally unrelated to anything we have done or tried to be. 

Yet you, Lord, are our Father. We are the clay, you are the potter; we are all the work of your hand. (Isaiah 64:8 NIV)
I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made; your works are wonderful, I know that full well. (Psalm 139:14 NIV)

A few years ago I was on a small island off the coast of New Zealand. Every night I watched a glorious sunset which was changing and evolving moment by moment as the colours created this amazing, unfolding vista. Once the sun had finally set I could sit on the beach or the jetty and look up into the sky. With no light pollution I could see the countless stars flickering away. It was beautiful and totally stunning, the work of a master artist. 

We have a beautiful world to live in. If only we would take time to look, we would see that we are surrounded by beauty. 

And yet the Bible tells us that we are fearfully and wonderfully made. We've been created by the same person who created this beautiful planet, the universe we can see and the rest which is still to be revealed. 

Sometimes we have doubts; we look at ourself and see our failings or our insecurity and we start to doubt the truth of who we are. We are the Father's handiwork and he takes great delight in us. He made us for himself, he created us so he could enjoy us and he made us in the image of his Son, Jesus. 

He celebrates you! Can you celebrate you?

Before I formed you in the womb I knew you, before you were born I set you apart; I appointed you as a prophet to the nations. (Jeremiah 1:5 NIV)
Your eyes saw my unformed body; all the days ordained for me were written in your book before one of them came to be. (Psalm 139:16 NIV)

What a tremendous security these verses bring. Before we were a dream of our parents, our Heavenly Father knew us. He knew all about us: where we would be born, who our family would be, what we would grow up to do and what we would be like. 

I don't believe this was purely a factual knowing. It was a creative knowing. It wasn't just that God could read a book about you, he actually wrote the book. He knows you because he created you. 

Of course, the picture God has of you is the perfect, unpolluted, unblemished one. The one that he determined before the broken world changed everything. Our Father is bigger than the mess in the world and whilst he knows the impact it has on you, it doesn't diminish his love for you. 

Our Father sees beyond the brokenness in our lives, in our families and in our world system. He sees us as we are, yet he continues to draw us into his love and into the security of knowing that he is being a Father to us. Not only does he know all about us but he knows the plans he has for our lives. He will always be with us as walk the pathway of life. 

For this reason I kneel before the Father, from whom every family in heaven and on earth derives its name. I pray that out of his glorious riches he may strengthen you with power through his Spirit in your inner being, so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith. And I pray that you, being rooted and established in love, may have power, together with all the Lord’s holy people, to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ, and to know this love that surpasses knowledge —that you may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God. (Ephesians 3:14-19 NIV)

The Father's love for us is immeasurable. It goes beyond anything we can imagine or comprehend. In fact, it is not meant to be understood as that would limit it to the extent of intellectual ability. Yet, it is something we can experience and go on experiencing. It is something we can live in. 

Paul's prayer is that we would be rooted and established in this love. That our lives would be planted in the Father's love so that we can begin to experience the transforming power of that love in our heart. The Passion Translation describes it as "the resting place of his love will become the very source and root of your life". 

The Father's love is wide enough to encompass every situation we may go through, it is long enough to stretch back through our history and it goes before us into our future. It is high enough to celebrate our joys and achievements and deep enough to carry us through our pain, grief and mourning. Our lives contain a lot of uncertainty and this can cause us to worry or live in fear. When we are planted in love we know a security greater than our own, we are able to trust the One who knows everything of our past AND our future.

His love will never leave us, nor forsake us. It is the only thing able to carry us through every circumstance we will face. 
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"Now to him who is able...." may our Father fill you with his love today and everyday. 

And hope does not put us to shame, because God’s love has been poured out into our hearts through the Holy Spirit, who has been given to us. (Romans 5:5 NIV)
For it is with your heart that you believe and are justified, and it is with your mouth that you profess your faith and are saved. (Romans 10:10 NIV)

We have seen over the past few weeks how the heart is not only central to who we are, it's where all our important relationships live. We relate to our husband or wife from the heart, we relate to our children from the heart, we relate to our close friends from the heart. Whilst I have a genuine care for the clients in my accountancy practice, our relationship is much more one of the mind as they are paying for me to impart my knowledge to them. Life-giving relationships are all rooted in the heart.

There are things we understand with our mind and that is good and right. But we do not relate to God with our mind, we have a heart to heart connection with him. Too often we admit to knowing the love of God in our mind and wonder when it will drop from there into our heart. It’s a question I’m often asked and I now believe it is the wrong question. God pours his love directly into our heart not into our mind in the hope that one day it might find its way into the heart. Many of us have learned to believe with our mind which leads to us rationalising everything. When we believe with our heart we will be transformed.

Opening our heart requires faith as we learn to trust our Father’s goodness and kindness towards us. As we open our heart we find that he puts his finger on some blockages or hindrances to receiving which he wants to remove. Opening our heart and seeking to keep it open is a doorway for us to go through as we seek to live in love. An open heart is a container for his love, the more open it is the bigger the container will become.

As we open our heart to his love we will start to live differently. We create a new wineskin that he fills with his love.

For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the Lord, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future. Then you will call on me and come and pray to me, and I will listen to you. You will seek me and find me when you seek me with all your heart. (Jeremiah 29:11-13 NIV)

Jesus offered life (John 10:10), he offered streams of living water (John 4:14) that would be life-changing and life-giving to those who could receive it. He was not necessarily showing people how to live properly by doing the right things, he was showing people how an encounter with him would change their heart for ever.

Our heart is central to everything. Our heart is deeper than our soul which comprises of our mind, will and emotions. Our heart is akin to our spirit, it is the place where the Father makes his home and it is the deep place that defines who we really are. Our soul (mind, will and emotions) belong to us but they do not define who we are. That’s done at a deeper level, in our heart.

It’s when we seek him in the deep place of our heart that we can begin to discover the plans he has for us. They are good plans, they give us hope for our future. At the same time though, we know we live in a fallen world which often tarnishes and confronts his plans for us. Yet, we can take heart knowing that he is always good. The journey we are called to take is one of the heart. It is not one of reason or emotion but a deep longing inside of us to discover the heart of our Father and then to pursue it with all our soul. It is our heart joining with his heart and through that we discover his ways.