Jesus was the perfect model of effective ministry.  I submit you that this fact arises out of His knowledge of His Fathers love.  The fact that Jesus walked in the absolute assurance of His Fathers affection, made him effective in His earthly ministry.

He said to the Jews in John 5:20 “the Father loves the son, and shows Him all things that He Himself is doing.”  Again in John 10:17 he writes that “for this reason the Father loves Me, because I lay down My life so that I may take it again.”  These expressions of the Fathers love reveal to us the fact that Jesus knew that His Father loved Him and soaked in that love.

Jesus said “My Father is glorified by this, that you bear much fruit, and so prove to be My disciples.  “Just as the Father has loved Me, I have also loved you; abide in My love. “If you keep My commandments, you will abide in My love; just as I have kept My Father’s commandments and abide in His love. “These things I have spoken to you so that My joy may be in you, and that your joy may be made full.”  The word “abide” literally means to “make a constant residence.”  Jesus made His home or rather his “constant residence” in the Fathers love.  He dwelt daily in the zip code of divine affection.  From that place of security the Son of God worked the works of God on earth.

This is no small matter for us to consider.  Galatians 5:6 teaches that “faith works through love.”  Our faith will never be activated toward God unless we believe that He loves us.  Love is the ground from which faith springs, and until we walk in the knowledge of our Fathers love we will bear little if any fruit.  Faith works though love.  If I do not believe that God loves me, I will never ask anything of Him in faith.  If I struggle to believe that He loves me, I will scarily believe that he cares enough to hear me let alone answer affirmatively.  Yet I have found that when I am most convinced of His affection, I not only pray bigger prayers but I take greater steps of faith.  Condemnation has the opposite effect.  When one feels condemned or under judgment it pushes them away from God.  I’ve never seen a person walking in condemnation also walk in faith.

The Apostle John later writes to his disciples in 1 John 4:18 “And we have come to know and have believed the love which God has for us.  God is love, and the one who abides in love abides in God and God abides in Him.”  John obviously had learned the great joy of making a “constant residence” in the Fathers love.  The results for John and for us are remarkable.  Firstly John points our that “perfect love cast out fear.”  Primarily it casts out the fear of judgment.  For he states in verse 17 that “love is perfected with us, that we may have confidence in the day of Judgment.”  Condemnation is the fear of Judgment.  Yet the love of God gives the sons of God confidence that when they stand before Him in judgment they will have nothing to fear.  There is not fear, because their sin has been dealt with at the cross.  If one is in Christ, he need not fear Judgment.  For Christ has suffered the wrath of God in our place.  And the Love of God made that provision for us.  Yet our enemy effectively uses the fear of judgment to neutralize our faith.  He uses fear and condemnation as wedges between the Father and his sons.  He does this because he knows that if he can get us to believe that God does not love us, that he will neutralize our faith, stop our prayer life, and bring havoc all around.

I once heard a friend of mine say, “I told the Lord that I loved Him, and the Lord said ‘Do you really love me?’”  When I heard that, I thought “that could not be God.”  It just didn’t fit with my concept of God, nor with my study of Scripture.  I was more used to a conversation with God where I said “I love you Lord and He Said ‘I love you too.’”  It stuck me that my friend was walking under the constant fear of not measuring up.  He seemed to have a concept of a God who was perpetually dissatisfied with him and his efforts to please Him.  Having served the body of Christ for this many years I know that this is a prevailing view of God which many still struggle with.  Since guilt and condemnation was the primary tool used to spur many to live rightly, the result was a loveless relationship with God.  A relationship which looked more like an employer employee relationship, than that of a Father and Son.

Yet the Scripture paints a far different picture of God.  Jesus has done all the “measuring up” which we will ever need.  He has met all the righteous demands of God at the Cross.  And in so doing has introduced us to the Fathers love.

God, I am convinced, wants us to know him as our loving Father.  When we express our love to Him, he wants us to hear Him say “I love you too.”  This is more than mere rhetoric on the part of a writer, but it is His expressed will in the Scripture.  John write again in another place “See how great a love the Father has bestowed on us, that we would be called children of God; and such we are.”

Not only do we experience freedom from the fear of judgment in the Fathers love, but we can know freedom from the fear of the unknown.

History tells of a Minister named George Matheson.  He was in love and engaged to a woman until she learned that he developed a condition which ultimately would leave him blind.  The rejection crushed his spirit, and the blindness robbed him as well.  His sister helped him cope with the blindness until she got married.  On the night of her wedding the wound of past disappointment was ripped open yet again as pondered a life alone.  He went into his study and threw himself into zip code of Divine affection.  That night as he made his residence in God’s love he wrote the word of this hymn.

“O Love that will not let me go,
I rest my weary soul in thee;
I give thee back the life I owe,
That in thine ocean depths its flow
May richer, fuller be.”

Matheson found freedom from the fear of the unknown in the Fathers love.

The earthly ministry of Jesus was rooted in the Fathers love.  And so must our lives be.  Being convinced of the Fathers love is the first step of Sonship and the ground of fruitfulness.  It is my prayer for you that you may come to the revelation of God’s love, and walk in its light.  For when you abide in His love “your joy will be made full.”  When you walk in the knowledge of God’s Love, you will walk in freedom from fear and condemnation.  That freedom, frees our faith to work the works of God.