In the last blog I talked about how we are too often defined by what we consume and not our legacy that we are to leave behind us. This misunderstanding of our calling has led ultimately to our misunderstanding of everything including love.
 
It is why today fathers don’t understand how to love their children, because we have made love a self-serving endeavor. We convince ourselves that love is simply being nice because being nice is simply a way to make our lives easier. Too many fathers will tell their children when something is wrong, but will not lead them to what is right. Too many fathers will not lead their homes, but only point out what is wrong in their homes to others. When asked they will say it is out of love (I know, I have heard it many times).
 
But God has called Himself: Father. What does love look like when our heavenly father talks about it?

• John 3:16 “For God so loved the world,that he gave his only Son…” This tells us love is about sacrifice and hope. God’s love allowed His son to die to bring you and I into His family.
• Romans 5:8 “God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.“ God’s love as a Father calls sin “sin,” but then also does something about it.
• 1 John 4:10 “In this is love, not that we have loved God but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins.” God’s love doesn’t wink at sin and say it’s OK; God’s love points out what sin is and then leads us to grace.

Through the scriptures we read what God’s love is and does…God’s love changes us, it makes us become different people. If our lives are not changing in light of God’s love for us, then we either do not understand God’s love, or are not truly living in it.
 
Back to earthly fathers today… If the way you love your wife and your children is not changing them for the better, then your love is not like God’s love. Real love, like God’s love, brings change in those who are receiving that love. That means love will call sin what it is, not slough off responsibility onto someone or something else; it will step into a mess and help our families change. If you are not willing to do that, then you aren’t willing to love and simply want to continue to be defined by what you consume.

• Sometimes love means we stop enabling those we care about to continue to live in ways that dishonor God in our own homes.
• Sometimes love means we show we the mistakes people make to run the course of their consequences.
• Sometimes love means we seek out the hurt and lonely and rescue them.

Sometimes love is all those things, but love is never inactive, and it innately calls and breeds change. Reflect and inspect what your vision of “love” accomplishes and see if lines up with God’s love as our Father, and how He loves us.