Live a life of love

I awoke this morning with these words going around in my mind.

“Copy God as beloved children and live a life of love!”

There is a fresh simplicity in the way Father speaks with us each new day. As children copy their fathers you, as God’s children are to copy him. I understand a little about children as we have three of our own. As they were growing up we were told “He is just like his dad!” or “She gets that from her mom!”

Children naturally emulate their parents because they spend so much time with them. The tragedy in today’s society is that children get to spend less time, for many reasons, with their parents and more time with other ‘influencers’ in the early stages of their development. And so, emulate others.

“Watch what God does, and then you do it, like children who learn proper behaviour from their parents. Mostly what God does is love you. Keep company with him and learn a life of love.

Observe how Christ loved us. His love was not cautious but extravagant. He didn’t love in order to get something from us but to give everything of himself to us. Love like that!”

Watch what God does……..  In the chapter, ‘Breakfast of Champions’ [The Shack] Mack sits down for breakfast and the conversation with Papa goes like this.

“You seem to be especially fond of a lot of people,” Mack observed with a suspicious look. “Are there any who you are not especially fond of?” She lifted her head and rolled her eyes as if she were mentally going through the catalog of every being ever created. “Nope, I haven’t been able to find any. Guess that’s jes’ the way it is.”

If God loves me and YOU like that then I want to love him in all that I do and say and think. The best way to do that is to keep company with him and learn.

If God loves us so deeply then surely our delight will be to live our lives within his affection every day…. ” I am very fond of YOU……… I guess that’s jes’ the way it is!”