Ever look into someone’s eyes and know that you were loved? A love that didn’t demand anything or didn’t vie for control? A father who loves his child gives them the freedom to choose to love back. There’s no strings attached.

Orphans don’t have a ‘blood connection source’ to input love into their lives. Sons with loving fathers have a love source, but they also get to choose how they steward what they’ve received. They can love back or not.

Many question a loving God who could allow atrocities to happen on earth without intervening. God the Father has given human beings free will. We get to choose. We can choose to love Him back or not. It makes all the difference in the world. Literally. Embracing His love changes us to love others well. Loving others means we get involved in their messes. It means we bring the transformation of cities and nations one person and neighborhood at a time by laying down our own agendas and picking up His.

Our responsibility as sons is to bring His ways to our world through what we do. God is not a magician. He is not a dictator. He is a Father who wants His sons and daughters to carry on His business with His authority and build His kingdom together as a family, using our talents.

God sent His Son, Jesus, to teach us what love looked like in real life. His ways weren’t popular with the religious groups who thought they had it all figured out and didn’t need more tutoring. Their choices brought His death. When He left earth to return to heaven, He left us to represent His kingdom. However, He didn’t leave us to do it alone. He gave us His Holy Spirit. And He showed us how to work together.

I think it was really gutsy of God to leave the transformation of our world to us as humans with free will! Because of that free will, we can reject Him and blame Him for the awful things that happen in our world. But maybe, if we stopped acting like orphans and embraced the Father’s heart as sons, followed the ways Jesus taught, and listened intently to the Holy Spirit’s guidance, we would understand that our choices can change our world.

What if we intervened by bringing our talents to help in large and small ways? What if that was His intention all along? What if we also personally benefited by the effect love has? What if we allowed Him to change our perspective so we could in turn partner with Him?

We could partner with Him in every area of life to bring deliverance, healing, hope, new inventions, creativity and supernatural love. Love is a powerful force and gives redeeming value to the most awful of situations.

We get to choose. We can choose to be an orphan or to be His son or daughter.

And we can choose to let love flow through us. We also get to reap the benefit of seeing our world change because we have lived out what love looks like.

Copyright © 2015 Nadine Patton.

All Rights Reserved.