♦This article is Thesis #15 in Matt Spink’s JoyBlog series
✧ What Do We See in the Face of God?
Another shift of understanding happening right now is in the area of the loving character of Father, Son and Spirit.
What do we see when we look into the face of our Beloved?
Do we see an angry hard-to-please perfectionist in the sky?
Maybe it’s because of some of the scriptures’ emphasis on sin and punishment, and so many Old Testament judgments, or even some New Testament ones. But
Jesus showed us so much more of THE beautiful face!
Even when we killed Jesus, He forgave and opened His heart wide to us!!
Isn’t the revelation of Jesus forgiving us, even while we killed Him, enough for us to see what God is really like? (Though, unfortunately, far too many people have made the cross about appeasing an angry father.)
✧ The Cross Reveals the True God
The cross is meant to be our penultimate revelation of our Triune God! At the cross, Trinity says to everyone,
“I love you absolutely and no matter what. And, I have rescued you to be with me forever!”
This massively informs our picture of God!!!
But, far too many of us have allowed another voice, another picture to set itself up in our minds and churches. This voice speaks to us with constant disapproval, never measuring up, always failing in some way.
For so many of us, the accuser has set himself up in the seat of our Abba!
The accuser of the brethren is always mistake-focused and sin-conscious.
Abba is always innocence focused and remembers our sins no more.
Abba is SO MUCH GREATER than the accuser!
Some have said that Jesus’ greatest work of deliverance was casting the devil out of our image of God!
✧ Reading Scripture in the Light of Jesus
We need to begin to read between the lines of scripture to see the shining smiling face of our Beloved Trinity! We need to read scripture as if Jesus and His new covenant bring the full picture, rather than looking through the lens of some misunderstood judgment passage. Abba always wanted mercy, not sacrifice.
We ought to look again at the parables that reveal the scandalous kindness and goodness of God.
Like Brennan Manning says,
“My life is a witness to vulgar grace – a grace that amazes as it offends. A grace that pays the eager beaver who works all day long the same wages as the grinning drunk who shows up a ten till five. A grace that hikes up the robe and runs breakneck toward the prodigal reeking of sin and wraps him up and decides to throw a party no ifs, ands or buts. A grace that raises bloodshot eyes to a dying thief’s request– “Please, remember me” – and assures him, “You bet!” A grace that is the pleasure of the Father, fleshed out in the carpenter Messiah, Jesus the Christ, who left His Father’s side not for heaven’s sake but for our sakes, yours and mine.
This vulgar grace is indiscriminate compassion. It works without asking anything of us. It’s not cheap. It’s free, and as such will always be a banana peel for the orthodox foot and a fairy tale for the grown-up sensibility. Grace is sufficient even though we huff and puff with all our might to try to find something or someone it cannot cover. Grace is enough. He is enough. Jesus is enough.”
✧ The Smile of Abba
Can you believe that God gives the same gifts to the people who show up at the last minute?
To the thief on the cross?
This is our Abba!
Religion has painted a picture of a hard-to-please Father, rather than The Celebrationist of the prodigal parable.
How many countless dear hearts are being crushed right now under the burdens that we have preached upon them, afraid that they aren’t doing enough, afraid that they aren’t enough!
And, I do get it — we also don’t want to just preach a God that empowers laziness or a lackadaisical attitude regarding how we live our lives.
But His empowering Presence in us won’t let us live that way for long, especially once we see His smiling face!
The very basis of the New Covenant is a God that doesn’t remember sins.
So we have full permission to let the perfectionism go…
Maybe we can begin to see our Papa, Jesus and Holy Spirit as the Loving Master Artist Family that They are!
And, They fully approve of us!
Maybe we can see life as a spontaneous child-like dance, rather than a judged dance recital.
✧ Highly Favored in the Beloved
Ephesians 1:6
“To the praise of the glory of His grace, wherein He hath made us accepted in the beloved.”
Song of Songs 6:9
“But unique is my beloved dove unrivaled in beauty, without equal, beyond compare, the perfect one, the favorite one. Others see your beauty and sing of your joy. Brides and queens chant your praise: ‘How blessed is she!’”
✧ Have We Missed the Heart of God?
In all our concerns for doing things the right way, have we missed the heart of God?
“But all the while, there was one thing we most needed even from the start, and certainly will need from here on out into the New Jerusalem: the ability to take our freedom seriously and act on it, to live not in fear of mistakes but in the knowledge that no mistake can hold a candle to the love that draws us home. My repentance, accordingly, is not so much for my failings but for the two-bit attitude toward them by which I made them more sovereign than grace. Grace – the imperative to hear the music, not just listen for errors – makes all infirmities occasions of glory.”
— Robert Capon
Surely our beautiful God’s main concern is not looking for errors.
May we find ourselves overwhelmed by the smile of our Maker and the simple joys of living!
— Matt
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