The Father's Eternal Love

God wants to make fathers great again by equipping men to be the best fathers, husbands, and men of God they can be. We explore how connecting to the Father's love for you directly impacts your effectiveness as a parent and leader in your home.

• The word "orphan" in scripture can also mean "fatherless" - even with parents present, we can feel spiritually fatherless
• Jesus promised, "I won't leave you as orphans" - He comes to us as the perfect representation of the Father
• God's love for you is eternal - there has never been a time when you weren't in His thoughts
• You were perfectly designed for your destiny - your gifts, ethnicity, and the time of your birth were all intentional
• The "dance of love" within the Trinity is the model for how God loves us
• Living from God's love rather than trying to earn it transforms your parenting
• God's discipline in our lives is always merciful - exposing brokenness so we can be healed
• When we understand God's gracious love toward us, we extend that same grace to others

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Chapters

• 0:00 Welcome to The Father Difference
• 8:20 God's Promise: Never Left as Orphans
• 16:51 The Intensity of God's Love
• 30:12 The Dance of Love in Trinity
• 42:12 Designed Perfectly for Your Destiny
• 52:08 Closing Prayer and Resources

Transcript

SPEAKER_00: 0:05

What kind of father do you want to be? What kind of man do you want to become for your family and for yourself? If you've ever wondered how to step into the fullness of your role as a father, husband, and man of God, then you're in the right place. Here at the Father Difference, our mission is to inspire and equip men to be the best fathers they can be. It's a powerful mission. And today, we're going to explore exactly how you can take steps toward that calling. Whether you're a father, a son, a husband, grandfather, single dad, stepfather, or just looking to grow, I believe God has something powerful for you in today's message. Whether you're tuning in live or watching this later, we are so excited to have you here. If this is what you're looking for, then subscribe so you can tune in each week to the Father Difference Live. You can sign up below. And now your host, a husband, father, grandfather, author, and former NFL player, Pastor Ed McGlass.

SPEAKER_01: 1:20

Hey, welcome. I am so grateful that you're here. Uh welcome to the Father Difference Live. And you know, we're all about equipping you as a man, as a father. Maybe you're single, maybe you're married, maybe you're unmarried right now, you're a single dad, and you want to learn things to really help you make the maximum difference you can make as a father. How many want that? Because I think what God's doing around the world is that He wants to make, guess what? Father's great again. And no matter how you voted on this election, God the Father is speaking from heaven because he wants to equip you, my friend, to be the best father you can be, to be the best husband if you're married, maybe your single dad, the best father you can be to your sons and daughters. And one of the most exciting things that I get to do is to meet with you guys weekly with our two live shows, one on Tuesday night at five o'clock. And then we have actually our membership. You might be interested in that. And we meet at six o'clock every Tuesday night around the world. And then also on Thursday for your wives or your girlfriends, or maybe moms that you know that can be connected. So welcome, Susan Ivana. I might be saying that wrong. If from Alaska, we got somebody from Alaska. G Fell, welcome. Looks like we got a designer in the house. A lot of my friends from different countries are logging in. I am so grateful that you're here. I am your host, Ed Tame McGlassen, and I am here in my studio in Southern California, broadcasting to you. I am so grateful you have. And so, and welcome. We're actually meeting at the Mountain of God here. If you've not seen, I'm also a painter, and that's one of the things that the God's gifted me to do, to communicate. And my mom was an artist, and so I get to meet here. That's where I meet in the morning. I get near God's mountain. And man, I'm I've been praying up a storm. I don't know about you. I'm praying up a storm for my whole neighborhood, and I'm praying up a storm for fathers around the world because we are gonna turn it around with the Lord's help. I think that's what God is doing around the world. So tonight I'm gonna we're gonna talk about the father's heart for you. God's, when you think about how much God loves you, we all know that God loves you, but we're gonna look in depth tonight about the intensity of the love of the Father towards you. Some of you might kind of live your lives in such a way where you think that God loves me when I'm obedient. Well, he loves you when you're obedient, of course, just like we love our kids when they're obedient, but his love is beyond that. His love was uh he put his love on the line when he sent his son to the cross for you and I so that we could freely receive this gift of salvation, which is a gift, by the way. Even the faith we've discovered together to receive Christ is a gift from God. It's not our works, it's not about being religious, it's about in our ability to receive. So if you want to be a better dad, do this a lot. And you all know this to be true, and that's this. If you're trying to love a girl who lives in the estrogen river, you've gotta have God. And if you gotta raise your sons who kind of remind you how broken you've been in your life, who do dumb stuff, right? And and you want to blame it on the genetics of your wife. Oh, I've had those fights where I would look at my wife and go, well, that's not coming from my genetic pool. That must be you. Well, oh, welcome, Greg Fisher. Great to have you. Welcome, Paul, tonight. And so we're gonna look at the intensity and the incredible blessing of God's love for you. And so I'm gonna start out with a verse that rocked me years ago when I began to discover God's love. And why did I need it? Well, my dad was skilled in action. If you don't know my story, he was a test pilot in the Navy, and I lost him just about a month before I was born. And so I didn't get to have a day with my dad, which should, you know, most royally screw me up as a man. But God, in his great mercy, for this boy named Ed Tanny McGlassen intervened in my life. You're gonna hear a little bit about that tonight, and he shared opened my heart to the intensity of the love of the Father for me, which healed some of the deepest places in me as a man. You know, those places that no matter what you achieve, it's it's not high enough. You never arrive. And those places where you're so broken, you don't think that there's any way that God can use a person like you or their any hope. I meet single dads all the time. Welcome, Sharon. And you know, and single moms and moms and dads who think they're just too broken to handle this situation with their children. Well, I got really good news for you. The the better you are at connecting to the love of God the Father for you, the more impact you're gonna have in the life of your children. And then one day, your grandchildren, which is parenting 2.0, where you move from loving them and protecting them and trying to keep them alive to perform and get a scholarship and go to college and be a good citizen, to parenting 2.0, which is grandpa, grandma, spoil them rotten, give them the sugar they're not supposed to eat, and send them back to mom and dad. This one of the great joys of my life being with my grandkids. I got 13 of them in number 14. That person is on the way right now in Tennessee, in the in the belly of one of my daughters in love who's married to Luke. So let's get into the intensity of God's love. Here's the the first slide I want you to scripture, look at this scripture. Jesus makes a promise to over 500 of his disciples that are following him. It wasn't just the 12, there were many disciples who ended up kind of you know following Christ. It's kind of like it reminds me of you know the Forrest Gump movie. Remember that money? Wasn't that a funny movie? And and all of a sudden this guy's, you know, Forrest Gump's just running, learning that he loved to run. He's run around the country and he's got this crowd following him. Well, it happened with Jesus, you know, more intently in that he loved and ministered to and set them free and healed them and taught them the word. And they just grew. And so he then looks at the crowd at one point and says, I won't leave you as orphans, I'll come to you. You know what's interesting about that scripture is that, you know, they weren't orphans in the traditional sense of no mom, no dad, you know, the pictures we get of kids in Africa or on the streets of uh LA or big cities who are completely unfathered or mothered. But the word orphan also is translated in the New Testament, fatherless, because you are considered an orphan in Jesus' world if you don't have a father in your story to bless you and to be there in your life to model who God the Father might could be. You know, they say that the first image to your children of who God is is they look at their dad. Well, they already got mom, so mom don't feel slighted in the in the slightest. As a matter of fact, the the better mom, because we got a couple gas joints tonight, even as a single boss that are here with us, the better you receive and learn how to be fathered by God yourself, as one of God's incredible women and mothers, maybe your wife, maybe your single mom, the quicker your children will discover who God their father really is, because of the way you receive from him in the midst of the overwhelming task of trying to be a single parent that needs two. Because you need a you need a father and a mother to really impact a child in a great way. And when a divorce has happened, or that dad has been taken away tragically, or that dad runs away as a single mom, you got God the Father to help you. Well, maybe you're a single dad raising sons and daughters without having that mom around. Well, something extraordinary happens when you connect to God the Father yourself as a son and teach your sons and daughters to connect to God the Father. And they get that same blessing not only through you, but from God the Father to them. And that brings incredible healing to our children, especially today with all of the crazy gender dysphoria that's going on in the world. And gender dysphoria happens because, you know, they we well, we we've had a couple see what shakes out after the election, but we've had a a group of people who, whatever their motivations, and I won't just, you know, demonize them. I mean, they the truth of the matter is that we can't give away what we've not received. So you can't expect from a broken political person to be a full-on follower of Jesus and then hold them to that standard. We want all of them to be that way. And the, you know, governments come and go, but the truth of the matter is there's no more powerful uh people in the world, in God's economy. Number one place of authority and power are moms and dads. That's why he made Adam and Eve. He didn't make government first, he didn't make the church first. The church is in service to the family. And the government's supposed to be in service to the church and the family, with laws to protect them, not to ever become number one or number two. And I think anyway, United States of America, we have a possibility, you know, for that, you know, really get the order being put back in. And who did it? It wasn't the current president. You know, people can take credit of things, but God is the one who ultimately chooses the leader. He chose Biden and Harris. They were our leaders here in America. And God decided to choose another political ticket. You might be wounded, you might be processing. Well, here's the deal. If our identity is in politics, I want to just kind of you know tie this off. In the political person we voted for, well, then if our candidate won, we feel really good about our future. If they lost, we might be fearful. Well, that means our identity is in the wrong thing. But if our identity is in the Lord Jesus Christ and the Father of Glory who spoke, let there be light, and there was light. If that's the one who's the center of your heart, long after the elections come and go, you, your family, your children will shine as lights in a dark world. And that's our hope. Amen. Somebody give me a high five and say amen. Send me a comment. I'd love to hear from you and what we're doing. Let me get back to the comment section. And so thank you. Amen. Let's go, Justin. Thank you from Montana. Montana is a great place to ride horses, herd cattle, find coal, find gold. It's an incredible place for family. Have a lot of great friends there. And so we're going to get back to that scripture I started with is I took you on a little mini rabbit trail, but that's just kind of the way my brain works. Thanks for hanging with me. But Jesus said, I won't leave you as orphans. That word for orphans is also translated fatherless, but I will come to you. That's his promise for you and for me. That's how he does that. So how does he do that? Well, I remember being at UCLA watching my daughter graduate, and there were just, you know, there were thousands of parents in the stands. And up there was the graduates. And my daughter was one of the few blondes left there at UCLA. And it was the science and you know, pre-med and and all that, that in engineering, that's what the graduation was about because it's such a big school. And so there was a sea of people from all over the world. I just wonderful. And, you know, as a, you know, as their their student went up to receive their diplomas, they would, you know, jump up and the parents would would cheer from different places, some louder than others. And all of a sudden, I got a text from my daughter. I put it here in the slide. Daddy, do you see me? Right? And she's sitting there and she's waving her cell phone. And when I heard that question, that question that, by the way, every child asks, Jill and I responded by jumping down like crazy fans. I mean, we were, I think, well, I'm a big kind of vulturous guy. I think they thought Yeti sort of showed up from the woods with the roar that came out of me. And you know, jumping up and down. And when my daughter, when my daughter saw us cheering, she just started laughing. And the look on her face was something I'll never forget. You see me, Dad. You're here. And it just occurred to me in that moment. It's the same look, beloved, that our heavenly father wants to see on our faces when we realize that he sees us and is cheering for us. See, when you when you understand, welcome, Travis, welcome, Chris or Sharon, when you realize that God the Father is in the stands cheering you on, he's actually in the ultimate stands, he's on the throne of heaven with his son and and the Holy Spirit. But when you understand that he is cheering you on, and the reason why he's able to do that is that he sent his son to give you this incredible new beginning so that you would know what it's like to be loved the way his son was loved when he walked on the earth. That's just such a powerful thing. You know, the blessing of the father, of our father's love, it really allowed Jesus to live from his father's love rather than trying to earn his father's love. Boy, that's powerful, isn't it? How many of you have tried to earn your dad's love by just doing it right? And you don't feel like you're there because you're you're broken. See, Jesus lived a life that was only possible through the loving gaze and affirmation of the voice of his father. That's why he went out in the morning to be with his father when it was still dark. He was tuning in his heart and his ears to the voice of his father to lead him so he could do what the father's doing all day long. And so he lived for that. He he loved living in the pleasure of his father. And that's why healing wasn't impossible because he knew he didn't have to produce the power. All he had to do is find out what the father was doing with the person he's praying for. Even raising Lazarus from the dead, he lifted his head and prayed to his father. What I, you know, dad, what are you doing here? And he saw it, he knew what his father wanted to do, and he called out his friend Lazarus. And he walked out of a tomb. See, the more you can connect to to your your own relationship as a son or a daughter to a father, it'll equip you with all that you need to be the father your children need you to be, to be the man or the woman that God's called you to be. Be the husband or wife that God's called you to be, even if your partner's still flawed, still broken. By the way, we all are. The grass is never greener once you say I do. It's always the best. It's greener right here when Christ is head of what you're doing. And I think it's just a powerful thing. Welcome, Christopher, to our channel tonight. And not only that, you know, yeah, there's this picture incredible, you know, picture of John the Baptist that's you know, uh of Jesus being baptized. And it's such a powerful, you know, kind of testimony that flows right out of the blessing of his father. That that moment when, you know, the Holy Spirit is baptizing Jesus in this river. I'm baptizing you here in the river, turning it's it's this incredible scripture in the message, turning your your old life in for a kingdom life. The real action comes uh next. The main character in this drama compared to him. I'm just merely a stage. And this John the Baptist uh talking, will ignite the kingdom life within you, a fire within you, the Holy Spirit within you from the inside out. He's gonna clean house, he's gonna make a clean sweep of your lives, Matthew saying in the scripture. He'll place everything true in his proper place before God, everything false he will put out with the trash to be burned. You know what's so powerful about that for you and I is the whole work of sanctification. When we become more and more like Christ, when we're yielding to his word of God and he's changing, he's the one who shows you what needs to be changed in your life. Welcome, Arthur. He's the one who points out and gives you the grace and the power to change. And when you're the one who's trying to get something out of your life, you ever struggle through that where I remember my early days of being a Christian? I was like, okay, I don't want to lust anymore. I'm in college, which I'm a young single guy. So it's like I'm gonna, all right, Lord, keep my mind pure, keep my mind pure, keep my mind pure. So I'm focusing all day long and not trying to be lusty, which is I was complete failure. I wasn't bringing it to the Lord. I was trying to prove myself to God that I could have a pure mind. The only thing that does is that makes us enter this religious works life that has no power. The only way for our mind to be cleaned and our mind to have those things broken in us is when we honestly are able to say, Father, I can't stop doing this. I need you. Come into my life, Jesus, and heal this deep thing in me that just keeps popping its head up. I I gotta tell you a story myself. I don't share this too often. Is that one of my finer moments? So you get to uh actually uh listen in on one of those those moments. So I I was talking about lust, and and so I was I tried to be really careful when I was in college because I didn't want any little eds running around. So I got saved, and you know, immediately the guy who led me to Christ invited me to uh start a a ministry on our campus that started to really grow. I mean, it really went from just a couple of people to well over 125 every month at our meetings, and and God was using me to lead people to Christ. And so I'd share Christ with them, and God was, it was just it was an incredible time. But I had this girl, and I won't mention her name in case she watches this. I don't want to embarrass her. She probably already told her husband this story. But we were in a physics class together, and she was really cute, and so I invited her back to come to my room to study. And by the way, my wife already knows this, so uh don't be shocked. And so, anyway, as it happened, we got to my room and there was kind of a connection, and the next thing we know, we had some clothes coming off, and I jumped on my bunk with her to, you know, just kind of fool around. And my Bible was open on my pillow, and I hit my face on my pillow, and on my Bible. I went screw, and it's like the Bible hit me right in the face, so now I'm looking at the Bible, totally confronted by the Lord, and I looked at her and I said, I'm so sorry. You know, I'm supposed to be acting like a Christian. Uh, God's just convicted me here. You're gonna make so many incredible wife one day, and we and we should we should you know put our clothes back on. And so we did. And and uh I shared with her about Jesus and how I met Christ, and she gave her life to Christ, and she repented with me and prayed and asked Christ in her life. And I looked at her and I said, Look, we got a tradition in our Christian ministry that you know, every every, you know, every meeting we get together, somebody gets up and tells her testimony. Could you please not get up and tell anybody how you met Jesus? Until we get off our campus, because you know, I'm supposed to be like the leader of this group. I just totally blew it. And she smiled at me. She goes, Okay, I promise. So anyway, towards the end of the of that year, my senior year, we really grew as campus ministry. And I met her when I was a junior. And and so sure enough, one of the guys who was the pastor in charge from a church says, you know, we've never had well, we'll say her name's Julie, which isn't Julie has never shared with anybody how she met either. You know, I mean to tell you, I was red as a bee. I was red as a bee. And I went, okay, all right, Lord, everything that's gonna be hidden is gonna be revealed. And so she gets up there and she begins to share about well, I don't want to mention this name, but a certain person in this university, a football player, we sort of started getting frisky and took some of our clothes off and jumped on his bed, he hit his face on his Bible, he felt guilty, and he shared the love of Jesus with me. And the whole room looked right at me. I mean, everybody. I was sitting there just going, oh, oh, I I said I'm guilty. I never done it since, but I did, I did, I I did, and they I they were laughing. I was not laughing hysterically. And boy, I got I got got by the Lord because he wanted to do something in my life. I he had you know at in those early days been been convicting me and trying to lead me into something else, and then the Lord allowed the ultimate discipline to come. And here's something that's that's incredibly merciful of God. And you've probably seen Christian leaders who have been publicly caught doing something they shouldn't. And or maybe you have. And you know, any discipline that God brings from heaven on on this side of eternity is called mercy. It's his goodness to expose what's broken, so that gives us an opportunity to repent and be healed. And so what's been happening in the church these last years, and with leaders who've been caught, and and you might be disappointed in that a church leader you knew fell into sin, and you you know, maybe made you backslide yourself or run away from God. That it was God's mercy for that person. Or those times when God's convicted you about something or exposed something in you, it's his mercy. Because on this side of heaven it's mercy, but on the other side, when we face him one day in eternity, it's not mercy, it's going to be judgment. And so it's God's mercy that opens up places in us, part of his love to change those things in us by revealing to us. And here's the great thing about God's love and his confrontation of things that are broken in us is that with conviction he gives us the power to change repent and change and to have a new beginning see God doesn't just convict us so that he can prove how much he hates sin. God convicts us because he loves us and he wants to give somebody a new beginning. So in the in the midst of the of what's going on politically in our country and you know this is this is a tremendous opportunity for us to love people that maybe have acted like our enemies or maybe we've treated them like enemies. And and I just I just want to remind you kind of just I feel like the Holy Spirit is just uh leading me to say this to you. It's that have the same heart towards those who get exposed in their own brokenness with the same love and mercy that God gave to you. And and there's a lot there's a lot of people that I've talked to and they're they're really excited about the discipline they see coming to the maybe the Democratic party I don't see it that way I see I think it's mercy. And I think it's mercy for us too I I think that God's trying to to heal something profoundly broken in our country in our world and our security doesn't come from the people that we elect our security comes from the king we put our hope in our Jesus and so I want to encourage you and I wasn't really planning on talking about this but is that I want you to remember the times where God has exposed something in you that you didn't want anybody else to know about and how gracious he was and how loving he was and how he didn't shame you. Now you might have shamed yourself you might even have had somebody who modeled that discipline in a wicked way that spiked the football on you or wants your harm wants you to pay the price but that's not that way with God. See he took all the anger he took all the frustration he took you know all the all the judgment that we deserved and he put it on his son on the cross so completely that when we go to him and ask for forgiveness the response back from him towards us is absolute love and mercy and forgiveness Jesus bought the rights to our forgiveness so that we could receive it mercifully and I want to encourage you with friends that you know that are hurting to to love them to do good to them to not spike the football to rejoice in I think a reprieve for our our country anyway if you're outside of our country you've probably been watching this and to stand up in righteousness and be the kind of father and mother that your children really need you to be. Your kids are watching this as well. So I think that's helpful. Give me a comment if that's touching anybody on that and we'll kind of get back to what I wanted to share with you because I I have a bunch more if you want to hang with me and it's all about how much that God really does love and I'm going to show that to you and so anyway you know all of this kind of comes through and I tell you what I'm going to do I'm gonna I'm gonna jump a little ahead because you guys are like at the head of a class here and I'm gonna share with you a section from my book. If you've not read my book it's it's called the father you've always wanted and if you've not gotten a copy you can get it from our website it's out of print right now on Amazon but would love for you to have that I'm holding it up and I'm not letting you see it. Here we go there we go and and I'm gonna encourage you to get this if you're a gal this is a tremendous book for a gal study or men's study uh as well and well welcome Ben and and so it comes from this section you know in my book that felt really compelled to share with you as well tonight and it's this whole idea of a thing called the dance of love. And uh Timothy Keller who's one of my one of favorite preachers out there and he describes the uh the perfect love of the Father uh between the father the son and the Holy Spirit he calls it the dance of love and and and he writes before the earth was created throughout all of history and into eternity without end there's been a waltz of love within the Trinity and it's a picture of the love that the father has for his son and the love that the son has for his father and the love that the father and the son had for the Holy Spirit and the Holy Spirit's love and in response to the father and the son and he calls it this dance of love. And he goes on and and actually I write that in in this book in that so when the father says he loves us our context of that love is the way the father son and spirit of love each other for eternity I don't know if you ever thought about that but the context of the way he loves within the Trinity God loves within the Trinity is the context of the way he wants you and I to experience his love and gives us at the end of his prayer in John 17 verse 24 just shares this incredible nugget there and he says Father I want those that you've given me to be with me where I am in other words I want all those that are watching right now to add online in 2024 on the 12th of November I want them to be where I am that sweet spot that they may see my glory the glory you have given me now he describes how that glory came to him because you loved me before the creation of the world so the manifestation of the glory of God on Jesus that people freely saw was the impact of the eternal love of God the Father on him and the love of the son back towards his father and the Holy Spirit it was the it was the dance of the Trinity and that we we see that picture when Jesus is baptized and and there's all three people persons of the Trinity there. There's a voice of the Father that's there that says this is my beloved son and and whom I love it's the Holy Spirit descending upon the son as he's coming out of the water in worship and empowering him with all the power that he needs to to to live out that story. And it's a the living son of God responding to his father and the Holy Spirit right there in the water is John is baptizing them. It was a picture of the dance of love that I'm thinking that could be a great painting one day. Hold me to it incredible picture that God paints there. And he goes on there and and so when you think about those three powerful things about God's love there's three things that just stuck out to me when I saw that number one is that his love is eternal. So there was no beginning or end to God's love in the Trinity God's always been a loving Father. Jesus has always been a loving son. The Holy Spirit has always been a loving Holy Spirit that takes from the Father and Son and deposits into our life and in all the gifts and the even the gifts of love are being being transferred and put inside of us so it didn't start when you were born or when you first did something good to earn it. Instead the father is always now get this the father has always loved you I started thinking about that that just started blowing my mind he's always loved us and and and not only that the verse goes on when Jeremiah was a teenager when the voice of God the Father interrupts his walk with these words he says before I I formed you in the womb I knew you I appointed you as a prophet to the nations I mean in other words there's never been a been a time in the history when you have not been on the mind of God is that the way you treat God's love towards you he has always loved you with the same eternal love that was present in the Trinity that's the the nature of relationship that that God came to build for you. It was his love that allowed his son to go and die on the cross for God so loved the world he gave his only son that whoever would believe in him would not perish but have everlasting life that's what God does for you and that's what God does for me. And second his love is what has designed you perfectly for your destiny who he's called you to be because he created you in his love you you can't be a mistake. Remember when I I first started to understand that I didn't have to change myself to receive more of God's love I didn't have to like become holy in the things that I did that God makes me holy because I receive him you see because even if your mom and dad conceived you out of wedlock or your dad took off when you were young or he was killed in action like my dad was or you were told that you would never you should have never been born there is nothing mistaken about your life gosh I can't tell you how many people I've met whose parents actually said I wish you had never been born well the problem is it wasn't enough to them I mean sure they got together and participated but God has been waiting for the arrival of you forever you've never not been in the mind of God that's what he said to Jeremiah before you were born I knew you that's why babies in the womb are whole people you know I I wish that the church would that we would actually celebrate our real birthday I mean we were the the day where when conception happened that's when you were born on earth but you were born in God's heart for eternity and then when you're when you come out and you have your going out party you're actually you know nine months old because your body is you know is growing and completely functioning and it's the body that he knew you would have with the gifts and everything that he's made you for perfectly so you can't be a mistake because if he he's he wants to give us share his love for us the way he loved one another in Trinity number two through his love he created you so you can't be a mistake and and so it goes on your design came even before your parents' birth you were perfectly made by God your ethnic background your gifts your physical design the the year of your hist the the year in history you were born all this has been on the eternal mind of God from the moment even of your first breath God's love has been pursuing you I mean the the the birth of Christ uh the the the the perfect location in the heart of God the father for Mary and Joseph to be in a manger and the incredible story of his birth and how God protected him and with all the wickedness that Herod tried to rain down and now yeah your life how you came into the world it could have been a crazy thing for your mom but he's been pursuing you and that that pursuit of you leads into the third thing about God's love is that the intensity of God's love towards us is measured by the way the Trinity loves one another not by our definitions of love. The Bible says the Father loves the son extravagantly of course he does he turned everything over to him so he could give it away a lavish distribution of gifts that is the same extravagant love that God has for us that God has always had for us he always will because God's love isn't defined by our models of love but by his perfect model and that's powerful for me when I think about it and so kind of tying this together tonight and and I love this this next question. So the big question here's a big question big kahuna question tonight is so what would you be a different dad or mom right now if you allowed yourself to be loved that way would you be a different person if you were loved by the way God loves you and learn to really receive that for yourself what would change everything changes it changes because his love will change our life for God so loved the world he gave his only son that whosoever would believe in him wouldn't die in their sin but have eternal life you know what eternal life is is 247 living in the presence and the love and the power of God's love it's eternal. And so and that's what happened to me and we'll kind of close with this verse and then Paul writes to the church's Ephesus so you beloved that you and me being rooted I love this picture and grounded in in love may you have the strength to comprehend with all the saints what is the breadth the length the height the depth of God's love and to know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge. It's so big it just is mind-blowing that you may be filled with all of the fullness of God that's what he wants you to know that's what he wants me to know that we want to know the the width the height the depth the the the love of God in Christ towards us and you can always tell when somebody's a receiver of God's love because they're incredibly gracious and they're quick to forgive because love covers a multitude of sin. They're not easily offended because they realize that anything that they have in their life has been given to them by a loving God and Father. And so they're quick to love their enemies or they're quick to do good to those who persecute them because that's God's way in us. Because if if God be for us you know the Bible says then who can really be against us powerful stuff. So kind of in conclusion the the fullness of God's love is found in the Heavenly Father who blesses you the Son who saves you and the Holy Spirit who empowers you to love others like he has loved you even people from the opposite political party that's the only true context in which we can understand God's love and from which we can love and bless each other. And so kind of in summary his love for you is eternal his love designed you perfectly for your destiny and his love for you is is measured by the intensity of the love of the Father between the love of the father and the son and the Holy Spirit the love of the Trinity and so the question then comes to bear how much more of his love do you want tonight? How much more of his grace do you want tonight? I'm here to tell you you can have as much as you want because he loves giving to us he loves blessing us and so there are resources and then we're going to pray together you can go to our website at the at thefatherdifference.com and if you've not gotten this book you can get it from us right there at the hey Mr Imanzio one of my favorite young dads your powerful powerful papa himself but the father difference is is right there uh the father you've always won a book if you don't have it with our study and uh if you're new to our ministry we would love to also gift you a book and it's called the difference a father makes and believe it or not you might not believe that we are at 243 countries right now worldwide where that book in digital form is being downloaded uh every minute of the day and I am so grateful I'm so grateful that we had that to be able to give away and the Lord said I want you to sew this to the nations and so that is really powerful and you're saying boy Ed I'd love to support you boy you can do that as well become a partner go to our website at the fatherdifference dot com slash donate we're our end of the year fundraiser that we do every year and uh we're raising money right now to finish out a brand new fatherhood academy that is going to be up and running it's already started but we have it for you as a resource to really help you a guy or gal connect to God the Father in such a profound way that it changes your life and the way you do parenting because right now we have an opportunity God wants to give your family your kids back welcome Lynette and many more joining us later make sure you get to the beginning you can watch this whole thing and and all the platforms that we have are going to be next week we're also going to be on rumble we're gonna rumble rumble rumble and so that's uh the last one we're adding in and so if you like this on on your whatever if it's Facebook would you or Instagram would you like and follow me and maybe share this with a friend leave a comment it would mean so much to our team so that we can get feedback if it's good or you have more questions we would love to hear you I'm here to serve you and I remember something the Lord said to me uh years ago you know Ed when people see that where you came from and how you became a good father it's gonna give a hope to all the guys in the world and it wasn't really a cut it's the truth. I mean what who of us have anything that God has not given to us and that's it. So maybe you want to experience more of the the father's love for you tonight. And so I'm gonna pray for you before we uh go we have a coaching group we're getting ready to get started as well and so let's pray father I am so grateful for my friends that are watching so grateful for all of those on Instagram and TikTok and YouTube and Facebook and Facebook Live and all the places Lord they're watching and I pray that you would reveal your love to them Father in a way that would completely reset their heart of the way they think about themselves the way they would think about their neighbors their families their friends those people maybe that think different politically and I pray Lord that you would reveal your love to us that we would know the height the depth the width of the love of Christ when you died on the cross you died for all of us you do you died for the most wicked of our bunch because it only took one sin to cause you to have to be sacrificed Jesus and so Lord we bring you our broken lives we ask you to forgive us and to give us your heart and to and to give us your heart for our family and relatives some of which are really hurting post-election and they're afraid the sky's going to fall in Lord I pray you would give us the right heart to love them. Father I also pray for the dads whose kids have maybe ostracized them and they're trying to get them back maybe through divorce or your kids have just walked away from Christ or they're wandering in the world confused about who they are I pray for those moms and dads that you would bring their kids home Lord even before the end of the year. Father I pray that you would do something that you've been doing as you've been turning the hearts of fathers back to children and moms too turn our hearts back towards our kids Lord and serve them and listen to them and love them in ways that that when they see the love that we have for them it draws them back home and to you heal our families Lord heal the families of all my friends that are watching and be with them Lord reveal yourself to them so that they would know you Jesus and that nothing's impossible with you in their family stories. Heal our families Lord heal our nation and restore us back to this generous life giving thing called America not the bad parts Lord but that part of our generosity our love for one another our acceptance of people from all nations use us once again Lord to be an example in the name of Jesus and heal our churches Lord heal my brothers who are preaching who have been discouraged and overwhelmed and and attacked by the enemy lift them up tonight and um because I I know one thing to be true about your church you said Jesus I will build my church and the gates of hell will not prevail that's a fact so Lord I pray that you would uh build up your church Lord build them up build up your people to know your love and to go share with their neighbors and may we this grandpa here may I see in my lifetime just millions and hundreds of millions of young people coming back to you Lord and fathers loving their children and their wives and their exes and that Lord you would heal us for the sake of our children and our grandchildren and it's in the match name of Jesus I pray to the glory of God and all God's people said Amen. Amen thank you so much I would love feedback from you how this has blessed blessed you you can uh go to our my website at uh thefatherdifference.com send me a message that would mean a ton you can respond on social media if you're on one of the platforms just give me some feedback maybe questions of things you'd like to learn places you'd like to go in the future I'd love to to hear from you and we got numbers of things here and resources and last but not least oh there's my friend Phil King and if you've if you've never heard this guy lead worship woo you gotta you gotta go and you know it's kind of like you're in a rocking chair with the Holy Spirit and the Lord he is just one of my favorite guys I I listen to his music all the time share it around and just uh go see Phil King. He's Phil King joined you know just he's just a wonderful wonderful man of God Papa great writer of songs he's one of God's mighty men and all that thank you for being with me uh we wouldn't exist without your generosity And uh thank you for the our partners. And and we have an end-of-the-year thing we're trying to do. We got to raise some pretty big dollars. If you're interested, even talking to me, send me a text so that we can finish building out our Fatherhood Academy to really make it a tremendous resource for moms and dads to be the best parents they can possibly be. And if you'd like to help us do that, let me know. Anyway, Lord bless you, praying for you. God is good all the time. Anyway, have a wonderful night. Time to go.