Welcome to Hank’s Place –
Today is the third Sunday of Advent. The Advent season is a time of preparation that directs our hearts and minds to Christ’s second coming and to the anniversary of Our Lord’s birth, celebrated on Christmas.
The Advent season for many is a time of depression, stress, anxiety. “Woe is me, I have no friends, my family won’t talk to me, nobody loves me — not even God, I’m not good enough,” and so on. Yet Jesus, who always spoke the truth — Hey, He IS the TRUTH! — said, “for the Father Himself loves you.…”
That’s recorded in John 16:27, “…for the Father Himself loves you.…” The Father Himself loves you. Take a deep breath, relax, for the Father Himself loves you.
Remember the beginning of John 3:16? “For God so loved the world, that He gave….” We don’t earn our Father’s love. We don’t perform to attain to our Father’s love. We can’t, for God so loved the world….
The Father loves you — beyond the general of ‘the world’ we find a special reason. It’s found in John 16:26-27 which reads, “On that day (after Jesus has risen from the dead) you will ask in My name (in the character of Jesus), and I am not saying to you that I will request of the Father on your behalf; for the Father Himself loves you, because you have loved Me and have believed that I came forth from the Father.”
In The Passion it reads this way, “And I will not need to ask the Father on your behalf, for you’ll ask Him directly because of your new relationship with Me. For the Father tenderly loves you, because you love Me and believe that I’ve come from God.”
You have believed the Good News and love your Savior, Jesus Christ, God’s Son, and now your Heavenly Father tenderly loves YOU.
Depressed? Hearing voices saying you should end it all? How about believing the truth that the Father Himself loves you. I suggest you lift your hands, throwing off the darkness in the same way blind Bartimaus did with his blind beggar’s cloak, on the Jericho road when He heard Jesus calling for him. Like him, receive your sight, see the truth, that the Father Himself loves you — and COME ALIVE!
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