Meaningful Minutes for Dads

Transcription

1 5 Meaningful Minutes for Dads God s Word for Everyday Life

2 5 Meaningful Minutes for Dads Rodney L. Rathmann God s Word for Everyday Life

3 The mission of CTA is to glorify God by providing purposeful products that lift up and encourage the body of Christ because we love him. 5 Meaningful Minutes for Dads Rodney L. Rathmann Copyright 2017 CTA, Inc Larkin Williams Rd. Fenton, MO All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior written permission of CTA, Inc. Unless otherwise indicated, Scripture quotations are taken from The Holy Bible, English Standard Version (ESV ), copyright 2001 by Crossway, a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers. Used by permission. All rights reserved. Love The fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control; against such things there is no law. Galatians 5:22 23 See what kind of love the Father has given to us, that we should be called children of God; and so we are. 1 John 3:1 The Scripture marked KJV is from the King James Version of the Bible. ISBN: PRINTED IN THAILAND

4 Love Shows Up! Love makes its presence known. It s about both presence and presents, because when you love someone, you give him or her the gift of your time; you show up! God shows up because he is the very essence of love. Eternally present everywhere, he made his presence known as he spoke our universe into existence. He showed up when, in fatherly love, he made the first man and woman. He showed up after their first sin, confronting them, announcing the consequences, and giving them the first promise of the Savior. He showed up in the manger, on the cross, and outside his own empty tomb. He will show up again when the time has come to take us from this world to live with him forever in heaven. Today God shows up wherever we encounter his Word. The Holy Spirit works through that Word to produce the amazing outcomes the Bible calls fruit. Galatians 5:22 23 identifies the fruit of the Spirit: love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. Note that love heads this list; the rest flow from it. When we come to know Christ, the fruit of the Spirit shows up in our lives. For instance... a young father sits all dressed up and, together with his wife, struggles to lead polite conversation while keeping the children from destroying the china Grandma has set before them on her formal dining table. Love, kindness, and goodness have shown up. A father beams as he thanks God for the gift of the baby girl he cradles in his arms. Love, joy, and gentleness have shown up. Remembering Christ s forgiveness for him, a dad checks his temper and forgives his wayward child yet again. He continues to plead for that child in prayer. Love, patience, and self-control have shown up. Such is the fruit God works as he shows up and works in us through his Word. And it s unlike anything else in a man s life! Having traveled a distance to spend time with the grandmother who led him to know Jesus, 4 5

5 Growing in God s Word As you read and reflect upon the following verses from the pen of the apostle John, think about this question: When and how does the work of each person of the Trinity Father, Son, and Holy Spirit show up in your life to bless you? If we love one another, God abides in us and his love is perfected in us. By this we know that we abide in him and he in us, because he has given us of his Spirit. And we have seen and testify that the Father has sent his Son to be the Savior of the world. 1 John 4:12 14 In what specific ways can you show up to share God s love this week with... your wife, children, parents, grandchildren, and the other family members who are closest to you? your friends and neighbors? What opportunities might you intentionally set up or seek out in order to share our Savior s love with still others? Heavenly Father, What a great and loving parent you have been to me. I thank and praise you for the many blessings you have given me. Especially today I thank you for... I confess to you that sometimes I have blown it in my relationships with those closest to me. Often I have failed to show up for my children physically or emotionally. Forgive me, Father, for Jesus sake, particularly for... Change me, Father, by the power of your Spirit so that I become more like you. Help me... Also, Father, I come to you today on behalf of these specific needs in the lives of others... I pray these things, confident in your forgiving, empowering love for me through the cross of Christ Jesus, my Savior, in whose name I pray. Amen. 6 7

6 Sharing the Joy Joy The fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control; against such things there is no law. Galatians 5:22 23 The joy of the Lord is your strength. Nehemiah 8:10 He heard the clock strike 10 in the morning. Max had stayed home from work to meet the repairman, who still hadn t arrived. Finding himself with time on his hands, Max decided to see what his son was doing. He found Roald at the workbench in the garage, struggling to make a sailboat out of the few scraps of wood, cloth, and metal he had managed to find. Intrigued, Max decided to join Roald in what he was doing. Engrossed in their project, they lost track of time. Forgetting lunch and even the anticipated repairman (who it turns out, had gotten stuck on a time-consuming project of his own), the enthusiastic father-son duo grabbed a quick snack before hurrying to a local pond to try out the boat they had made. I didn t accomplish very much today, Max later told his wife. But Roald viewed things differently. Years later he looked back on that day as one of the happiest of his life. Psychologists have a phrase to describe the experience of being so consumed with an enjoyable activity that we lose track of time. They call it being in the flow. Self-forgetfulness overtakes us as we throw ourselves into the moment. We often find ourselves in the flow when we are engaged in the act of making or fixing some- 9