All children are born with a need to love and be loved, a need to live lives that have meaning, and a need to believe that tomorrow is worth getting up for. The most effective vehicle God designed to transfer these to a human heart is a grace-based home…

I. At the core of grace is love – a love that delights in us in spite of our sin and comes to us free of charge…

1 Corinthians 13:1-11 (MSG)
1 If I speak with human eloquence and angelic ecstasy but don’t love, I’m nothing but the creaking of a rusty gate. 2 If I speak God’s Word with power, revealing all His mysteries and making everything plain as day, and if I have faith that says to a mountain, “Jump,” and it jumps, but I don’t love, I’m nothing. 3-7 If I give
everything I own to the poor and even go to the stake to be burned as a martyr, but I don’t love, I’ve gotten nowhere. So, no matter what I say, what I believe, and what I do, I’m bankrupt without love. Love never gives up. Love cares more for others than for self. Love doesn’t want what it doesn’t have. Love doesn’t strut, doesn’t have a swelled head, doesn’t force itself on others, isn’t always “me first,” doesn’t fly off the handle, doesn’t keep score of the sins of others, doesn’t revel when others grovel, takes pleasure in the flowering of truth, puts up with anything, trusts God always, always looks for the best, never looks back, but keeps going to the end. 8-10 Love never dies. Inspired speech will be over some day; praying in tongues will end; understanding will reach its limit. We know only a portion of the truth, and what we say about God is always incomplete. But when the Complete arrives, our incompletes will be canceled. 11 When I was an infant at my mother’s breast, I gurgled and cooed like any infant. When I grew up, I left those infant ways for good.

A. Love emanates straight from the

of

Reveal Answer

.

B. The Bible uses love as both a

and an

Reveal Answer

for God.

1 John 4:7-11 TPT
7 Those who are loved by God, let His love continually pour from you to one another, because God is love. Everyone who loves is fathered by God and experiences an intimate knowledge of Him. 8 The one who doesn’t love has yet to know God, for God is love. 9 The light of God’s love shined within us when He sent His matchless Son into the world so that we might live through Him. 10 This is love: He loved us long before we loved Him. It was His love, not ours. He proved it by sending His Son to be the pleasing sacrificial offering to take away our sins. 11 Delightfully loved ones, if He loved us with such tremendous love, then “loving one another” should be our way of life!

C. Because we were made in God’s

, we have built into our basic makeup
an

Reveal Answer

capacity for love.

II. Desiring to love your children and

Reveal Answer

loving them in such a way that they develop a secure love of their own are two different things…

A. Almost all parents love their children, and children can find clear

of that

Reveal Answer

.

B. But loving your child and even doing things to show your love do not translate
into a

love.

C. Let’s define what we mean by a secure love…
1. A steady and sure love that is written on the

Reveal Answer

of their souls.
2. Secure love is a

Reveal Answer

love that they

Reveal Answer

to when their hearts are under attack.
3. It’s the kind of love that children can confidently carry with them into the

Reveal Answer

.

III. We all long for a future that is kind to our children, but history has shown that tomorrow tends to take notes from yesterday…

If the past is any indication, our children will certainly have their sense of being loved tested as they move into adulthood…

A. Someday scenarios…

B. Where will they be when they most need this

love?
1. Maybe it will be when they’re sitting across the table from someone they’ve given their

Reveal Answer

to who has just told them that they don’t love them anymore.
2. Maybe it will be when the bottom has fallen out of their

Reveal Answer

world.
3. Maybe it will be when they hear two painful words: “You’re

Reveal Answer

.”
4. Maybe it will be when they’ve been set up and

Reveal Answer

for something they didn’t do.
5. Maybe it will be when they read a forwarded e-mail, and realize they have been betrayed by a

Reveal Answer

.
6. Maybe it will be when they are standing beside a casket, holding the

Reveal Answer

of their soul mate or one of the offspring from that union.
7. Maybe it will be when they are wearing a uniform, standing a

Reveal Answer

post, or facing a merciless enemy far from the safety of home.

Our children are a gift we send to a time that we will not see. We need to send them into that time so secure that even if we have long since passed away, they will rest in the confidence that they are loved.

Exodus 33:1-19 MSG
1-3 GOD said to Moses: “Now go. Get on your way from here, you and the people you brought up from the land of Egypt. Head for the land which I promised to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, saying ‘I will give it to your descendants.’ I will send an angel ahead of you and I’ll drive out the Canaanites, Amorites, Hittites, Perizzites, Hivites, and Jebusites. It’s a land flowing with milk and honey. But I won’t be with you in person—you’re such a stubborn, hard-headed people!—lest I destroy you on the journey.” 4 When the people heard this harsh verdict, they were plunged into gloom and wore long faces. No one put on jewelry. 5-6 GOD said to Moses, “Tell the Israelites, ‘You’re one hard-headed people. I couldn’t stand being with you for even a moment—I’d destroy you. So take off all your jewelry until I figure out what to do with you.’” So the Israelites stripped themselves of their jewelry from Mount
Horeb on. 7-10 Moses used to take the Tent and set it up outside the camp, some distance away. He called it the Tent of Meeting. Anyone who sought GOD would go to the Tent of Meeting outside the camp. It went like this: When Moses would go to the Tent, all the people would stand at attention; each man would take his position at the entrance to his tent with his eyes on Moses until he entered the Tent; whenever Moses entered the Tent, the Pillar of Cloud descended to the entrance to the Tent and GOD spoke with Moses. All the people would see the Pillar of Cloud at the entrance to the Tent, stand at attention, and then bow down in worship, each man at the entrance to his tent. 11 And GOD spoke with Moses face-to-face, as neighbors speak to one another. When he would return to the camp, his attendant, the young man Joshua, stayed—he didn’t leave the Tent. 12-13 Moses said to GOD, “Look, You tell me, ‘Lead this people,’ but You don’t let me know whom You’re going to send with me. You tell me, ‘I know you well and you are special to me.’ If I am so special to
You, let me in on your plans. That way, I will continue being special to You. Don’t forget, this is Your people, Your responsibility.” 14 GOD said, “My presence will go with you. I’ll see the journey to the end.” 15-16 Moses said, “If Your presence doesn’t take the lead here, call this trip off right now. How else will it be known that You’re with me in this, with me and Your people? Are You traveling with us or not? How else will we know that we’re special, I and Your people, among all other people on this planet Earth?” 17 GOD said to Moses: “All right. Just as you say; this also I will do, for I know you well and you are special to me. I know you by name.” 18 Moses said, “Please. Let me see Your Glory.” 19 GOD said, “I will make My Goodness pass right in front of you; I’ll call out the name, GOD, right before you. I’ll treat well whomever I want to treat well and I’ll be kind to whomever I want to be kind.”