I went to the Discover your maker camp a few weeks ago, and Kevin Fenger did the talks on Forgiveness...they were totally excellent, inspiring and real! And i want to share with you some of what he spoke about! I asked him to send me his notes - so the entry below is all Kevin :) He did his talks in 2 parts...so ill post them in 2 sections! I hope you find them as helpful and inspiring as i did :)
1. The heart of a father
Picture this in your head: A little boy who has lost his mum or dad in a busy train station, he is alone and vulnerable. His mum is not to be seen and the little boy begins to cry. How do you think the boy feels?
Picture this in your head: Mother, was off buying a ticket and turns to ask her son if he would like to go to the toilet before the train comes. Imagine her looking around. Imagine that moment when she realises that he is not with her and alone somewhere in a busy railway station.
How do you think she feels?
I visualise her running… screaming Brandon!! Brandon!!! BRANDONN!! Running back in the direction she came in, scanning frantically through brimming tears as she fears for the worst. He must be so scared? Is he ok? How close was he to the tracks? Was he abducted? BRANDONN!!! BRANDONN!!!!
Now I want you to take that emotion that you are imagining for that mother and place it into the heart of God when his child is lost. God loves you at least that much, and is panicking and searching frantically to find you… wondering if you can hear him calling… no, screaming your name… KEVIN!!!!!!!
That mother is not thinking “Why did that little wretch let go of my hand? Why did he not stay where he was told? Why did he wander off? The little beast, I’m going to kill him when I find him!” God does not want to punish you for wandering off either; he is desperately searching for you to save you from certain death. He is screaming your name, hoping that you will hear, lift up your head, and follow the sound of his voice.
There is a song that I’ve heard. I don’t know if you guys know it, it goes:
be careful little hands what you do
be careful little hands what you do
Because the Father up above is looking down with … love
I think sometimes we get the words of that song wrong
be careful little hands what you do
be careful little hands what you do
Because the Father up above is going to squash you like a bug...
I used to have this perception of God, the Father, as a stern and remote God watching our every move waiting for us to step out of line so that he can punish us and teach us a lesson… That is not the Father that I know now. Jesus showed us the Father’s love. Jesus gave his own life to save me, he took a bullet for you and for me … and that is an expression of the Father’s love. He will do whatever it takes to save you, he will die for you. He’s not waiting for you to step out of line so he can squash you, He is looking down with love and He wants what is best for you… He wants a relationship of love and trust and communication and fondness. He is especially fond of you. If you’re lost in the railway station of your life, God is desperate to throw his arms around you and hold you close.
He knows everything about you. He knows what you do in dark places in your heart, he knows everything that you think, everything you imagine and he loves you. Just the way you are. He made you and God doesn’t make junk! He sees you as a masterpiece. And if you go missing, he wants to find you.
He will come and meet you wherever you are. You know if Nicola (Kev's daughter) had to call me and tell me she was in the city somewhere and she was scared and on her own, and she thinks someone is following her, I would take the phone into the car with me and start driving. Yeah, I’d break the no talking on your cell phone while driving law. And I would drive up and down every street in the city until I found her. God is your father, He will drop everything to focus on his one lost sheep and come and find you in whatever place you find yourself.
God wants to hear from his children too. If a child is in trouble and turns to God, whether that place is on the end of a needle, whether it’s in a gutter, at a private school, at a public school, in the shower, or right here in this room, he will come to you. Whatever you’ve done, it doesn’t matter. You could have lied to your mother, you could have failed your HSC, you could have downloaded suggestive or explicit music, images or videos, you could have run away from home, you could have sent suggestive or explicit text messages, you could have bullied someone online or offline, you could have endangered the lives of your friends by driving above the speed limit for kicks, you could have popped pills, you could have led someone on, you could have given into lust, you could have abandoned your child in a dustbin. You could have killed someone.
God, your Father just wants you to turn to him so that he can hold you and tell you that you are his child and he loves you more than you will ever know. He wants so desperately to find you and to start spending every day with you, if you will invite him to do so.
So how do we spend the day with God? How do we have a relationship with God? What does that mean? It’s a lot more difficult to understand how to have a relationship with God than it is to have a relationship with a real person.
I like to think of God living in my heart talking to me and guiding me each day. And when I am focused on His goodness and His love, he is speaking loudly into my life, but when I focus on things like selfishness or anger or bitterness or revenge or spite, these things drown out the voice of God in my life… If God’s word in my heart is like a seed wanting to grow, then when I focus on these things, I cannot hear God, he still dwells in me, but these things are like weeds in my heart choking him and distancing me from his voice and once that voice drops to below a whisper in my heart or in my conscience, I have lost my guide. God could be screaming my name, KEVIN!!!! … but I cannot hear anymore, but my anger, my bitterness, my selfishness is drowning out His voice … Ephesians tells us how God describes what He feels when we wander away from him in this way and it is probably the most powerful word we have in the English language for the pain of loss. God says he feels ‘grief’! In Ephesians 4: 30 he says do not grieve the Holy Spirit of God.
We talk about grief when someone dies. The picture I have of grief is a picture of a Father holding the lifeless body of His son or daughter in His arms and screaming through His sobs: “Noooooooooo!” my son!!! My son! Not my son …
Grief is not an emotion you would normally associate with anger or wrath or judgement. When someone you love dies, you miss them! You feel empty without them. God says that’s how he feels about you. When you let love and compassion and mercy and humility get choked out of your heart, your Father misses you. He wants you to spend time with him. He has always been interested in a relationship with you.
He has made that relationship possible, through Jesus. What Jesus achieved through His life was to triumph over sin. Yes, he triumphed alright. His victory was won by the way he lived and by the way he loved. He lived showing God’s character and God’s love. He forgave sins, He did not condemn sinners; instead he mixed with them, ate with them, taught them and encouraged them. He showed us in every step of his life what his Father would do.
Hebrews 10:5-7
Jesus sweated, as it were, blood to submit his will to his Father’s will. He had come to do his Father’s will. He couldn’t do what he wanted to do, which at that point may have been to run. He had to be true to what his Father would have done and lay down his life so that you and I could be saved: So that you and I could share eternity with Him.
Hebrews 10:11-17
Our sins and lawless acts he will remember no more…
That’s good news for me! As you know, gospel means ‘good news’ and the gospel of Truth for me is this:
• My name is Kevin and I am a sinner (i.e. I am broken, I get lost, I slip
and fall, I backslide and I’m weak)
• My Father loves me (and is especially fond of me) In Him I am forgiven, I
am established, I am found, I am rooted and He is strong.
But above all … I am loved
No comments:
Post a Comment