6 Foundations for Intimacy with God: Week One, The Love of the Father

by Barbara Latta

Focus on the love of God.

This is the beginning of a series of blog posts based on what I have learned from other Bible teachers and my own study revealing how to have a victorious spiritual life. I am going to share 6 principles that will revolutionize your walk with our heavenly Father if you will get into the Word and search out the scriptures for yourself and let the Word of God take deep root within you.

These 6 foundations are:

• The Love of God
• Our Spirit, Soul, and Body
• Identity in Christ
• God’s True Character
• Spiritual Authority
• How God Sees Me

Today we will focus on the love of God.

God doesn't love us based on our performance.

Most people, even Christians, have an image of God standing over them with a big stick or lightning bolt ready to zap at the first wrong committed. We have this vision because we are stuck in the Old Testament where God had to punish wrongs because that was the only way to get rid of sin. Jesus had not died on the cross to pay for sin yet so people had no way to be born again.

We hear sermons about God loving the world and Jesus dying for us. If you are a Christian, you know that. But you may be like I was for a long time and not really letting the personal aspect of God’s love sink into your soul. I knew it in my head and accepted that truth, but I still felt like I was part of the masses God loved but on an individual basis, I fell short. 

I had the image a lot of us have where we measure God’s love by what we do. If we are not performing correctly or doing lots of good deeds, why would God love us? We think that way because our human capacity to love, apart from God, is displayed by what someone does for us.

But God doesn’t deal with us the way we deal with each other.  He doesn’t just display love, He is love. Love is His very being. He created the world because of love. He desired to share Himself with others made in His image.

Under the law, a person had to prove love for God by performance. The law had to be kept or suffer the consequences. While this was harsh, it was the only way sin could be kept in check.

Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul and with all thy mind (Matthew 22:37). This depended on the effort and works of the people.

Because Jesus fulfilled the law, we are free of living under those restrictions.

Herein is love, not that we loved God but that He loved us and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins (I John 4:10).

It’s not supposed to be hard, but our minds get in the way. Every time we mess up we think

Write down scriptures about God's love.

we need to run from God until we clean ourselves up and become worthy to approach His throne again. But how can we straighten ourselves out apart from Him? The best place to be after committing sin is in the arms of the Father.

And as we tell Him all our transgressions, He will say, “I don’t know what you are talking about. You are washed clean because I love you.”

But where sin abounded, grace abounded much more (Romans 5:20b).

As far as the east is from the west, so far has He removed our transgressions from us (Psalm 103:12).

How do you get this revelation of God’s love to take root in your heart?

• Find the scriptures about God’s love and write them down.
• Meditate on these verses every day saying them out loud to yourself and make it personal by inserting your name.
• No matter how you feel, believe the Word is true.  This is important when your emotions say otherwise.

The first step to intimacy with the Father is knowing deep within your heart how much He loves you.

The Bible is full of favorite verses, but this one says so much:  For I am persuaded that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present, nor things to come. Nor height, not depth, nor any other creature shall be able to separate us from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord (Romans 8:39).

What is your favorite verse about the love of the Father? Join the conversation.