In this study we are examining God’s love and how we can use that love as an anchor when the storms of life hit.
Someone once said we are all either living in a life storm, just exiting a life storm or just entering a life storm. Where are you today? Be assured God knows, cares and can enable you.
The next aspect of God’s love we will examine is the depth of His love for you.

5) Depth of God’s love is that of a father and His identity

Who is the Father?
He is everlasting according to Isaiah 9:
6 For unto us a child is born, unto us a son is given: and the government shall be upon his shoulder: and his name shall be called Wonderful, Counsellor, The mighty God, The everlasting Father, The Prince of Peace.
Psalm 68:
5 A father of the fatherless, and a judge of the widows, is God in his holy habitation.

He is the Father of mercies according to 2 Corinthians 1:
3Blessed be God, even the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of mercies, and the God of all comfort;
Psalms 103:
12 As far as the east is from the west, so far hath he removed our transgressions from us.
13 Like as a father pitieth his children, so the LORD pitieth them that fear him.
14 For he knoweth our frame; he remembereth that we are dust.

Where is the Father?
He is in Heaven according to Luke 11:
8 Be not ye therefore like unto them: for your Father knoweth what things ye have need of, before ye ask him.
9 After this manner therefore pray ye: Our Father which art in heaven, Hallowed be thy name.

He is in believers according to Ephesians 4: –
6 One God and Father of all, who is above all, and through all, and in you all.

He is not far from unbelievers according to Acts 17:
27 That they should seek the Lord, if haply they might feel after him, and find him, though he be not far from every one of us:
28 For in him we live, and move, and have our being; as certain also of your own poets have said, For we are also his offspring.
29 Forasmuch then as we are the offspring of God, we ought not to think that the Godhead is like unto gold, or silver, or stone, graven by art and man’s device.

What does the Father do?
He adopts us into His family according to Romans 8:
14 For as many as are led by the Spirit of God, they are the sons of God.
15 For ye have not received the spirit of bondage again to fear; but ye have received the Spirit of adoption, whereby we cry, Abba, Father.
16 The Spirit itself beareth witness with our spirit, that we are the children of God:
17 And if children, then heirs; heirs of God, and joint-heirs with Christ; if so be that we suffer with him, that we may be also glorified together.

He calls us sons according to 1 John 3:
1 Behold, what manner of love the Father hath bestowed upon us, that we should be called the sons of God: therefore the world knoweth us not, because it knew him not.

He chooses to be our Father according to 2 Corinthians 6:
17 Wherefore come out from among them, and be ye separate, saith the Lord, and touch not the unclean thing; and I will receive you,
18 And will be a Father unto you, and ye shall be my sons and daughters, saith the Lord Almighty.

Some have known the love of an earthly father while some have never known the love of an earthly father. But God’s love is perfect. It’s everything a father’s love should be or could be.

God’s identity is love according to 1 John
8 He that loveth not knoweth not God; for God is love.

The Love of God – Frederick N. Lehman, 1917

1. The love of God is greater far Than tongue or pen can ever tell;
It goes beyond the highest star, And reaches to the lowest hell;
The guilty pair, bowed down with care, God gave His Son to win;
His erring child He reconciled, And pardoned from his sin.

Refrain:
Oh, love of God, how rich and pure! How measureless and strong!
It shall forevermore endure—The saints’ and angels’ song.

2. When years of time shall pass away, And earthly thrones and kingdoms fall,
When men who here refuse to pray, On rocks and hills and mountains call,
God’s love so sure, shall still endure, All measureless and strong;
Redeeming grace to Adam’s race—The saints’ and angels’ song.

3. Could we with ink the ocean fill, And were the skies of parchment made,
Were every stalk on earth a quill, And every man a scribe by trade;
To write the love of God above Would drain the ocean dry;
Nor could the scroll contain the whole, Though stretched from sky to sky.
Verse 3 was penciled on the wall of a narrow room in an American insane asylum by a man said to have been demented. The profound lines were discovered when they laid him in his coffin.

Questions for Reflection
1) What does the love of God as your Father mean to you?

2) Where are you in your understanding of God as your Father?

3) How much time do you spend with your Father daily? Why?

Hebrews 12:
1 Wherefore seeing we also are compassed about with so great a cloud of witnesses, let us lay aside every weight, and the sin which doth so easily beset us, and let us run with patience the race that is set before us,
2 Looking unto Jesus the author and finisher of our faith; who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is set down at the right hand of the throne of God.

Let us run with patience the race He set before us, looking unto Jesus!

Coach Patti