Acts 1:4 – And, being assembled together with them, commanded them that they should not depart from Jerusalem, but wait for the promise of the Father, which, saith he, ye have heard of me.
Luke 15:18-20 – I will arise and go to my father, and will say unto him, Father, I have sinned against heaven, and before thee,
And am no more worthy to be called thy son: make me as one of thy hired servants.
And he arose, and came to his father. But when he was yet a great way off, his father saw him, and had compassion, and ran, and fell on his neck, and kissed him.
Acts 11:15 – And as I began to speak, the Holy Ghost fell on them, as on us at the beginning.
Have you ever tasted the Father’s love? Some people have had a struggle with this concept because their earthly father may have been absent. No earthly father can ever really measure up because all of us fathers are flawed. Our Heavenly Father is not like that, He is always present, He loves us with an everlasting love, and His goodness pours out from Him in an everlasting flow of His compassion for us. Jesus was describing this in Acts 1:4 when told His disciples about the promise of the Father. The promise of the Father is the Father’s love revealed in the person of the Holy Spirit. When He comes upon us we taste the matchless love of God for ourselves.
In the parable of the Prodigal Son Jesus described the Father’s love for His wayward son. When the prodigal was coming back home in repentance the Father ran to meet His son and fell on top of him in the road pouring His love on His son. In this passage Luke used a term epipipto which means He fell on him. Interestingly, Luke also used this term when he described the gentiles at Cornelius’s house receiving the Holy Spirit. He said that the Holy Spirit “fell on” them. Wow!!! The Holy Spirit greets us when we turn to the Father, wrapping us in the Father’s love. This love is the primary purpose of the Baptism in the Holy Spirit. The inevitable result of this encounter is that we begin to pour this love on others. So it is okay just to allow God’s love to soak into our lives. The Father’s love is healing love, bask in it and you will be made whole.
