Children of Alcoholics

"Children of alcoholics, according to experts, are all but forced to learn early on that they can’t control what they can’t control — but that they very much must control what they can. They can learn to manage around a person who can’t be managed. They can learn to make and keep a kind of order in situations that are marked by the utter lack thereof. They can learn to make themselves invaluable, or invisible — and when to be the former, and when to be the latter. They can be, and can grow up to be, quiet and competitive, persistent and resilient, achievers and survivors, and keen, intuitive readers of rooms and moods and needs. They can be compulsive pleasers of people and in particular one person — a person whose needs trump those of others and certainly their own. They can be helpers. They can be enablers. They can be both."

By grace, God can take the results of a tough childhood and use them for good in our lives.

The Love of Christ for Us

 

The Love of Christ for us

He loves us:

Eternally-

In love He predestined us to adoption as sons through Jesus Christ to Himself, according to the kind intention of His will.

Ephesians 1:4b-6

Preemptively-

We love because He first love us. 

I John 4:19

But God demonstrates His own love for us, in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. 

Romans 5:8

 

Totally (at max capacity)

Now before the Feast of the Passover, Jesus knowing that His hour had come that He would depart out of this world to the Father, having loved His own who were in the world, He loved them to the uttermost. 

John 13:1

 

Sacrificially-

Greater love has no man than this, that one lay down his life for his friends.

John 15:13

Therefore be imitators of God as beloved children; and walk in love, just as Christ Jesus loved you and gave Himself up for us, an offering and a sacrifice to God as a fragrant aroma. 

Ephesians 5:2

I have been crucified with Christ; and it is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me; and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself up for me.

Galatians 2:20

Specially-

Greater love has no man than this, that one lay down himself for his friends. You are my friends is you do what I command you.

John 15:13-14

I in them and You in Me, that they may be perfected in unity, so that the world may know that You sent Me, and loved them, even a You have loved me.

John17:23

See how great a love the Father has bestowed upon us, that we should be called children of God; and such we are.

I John 3:1

But the lovingkindness of the Lord is everlasting to everlasting on those who fear Him, and His righteousness to children's children, to those who keep His covenant and remember His precepts to do them.

Psalm 103:17-18

Expressively-

Bless the Lord, O my soul, and forget none of His benefits; who pardons all your iniquities, who heals all your diseases; who redeems your soul from the pit, who crowns you with lovingkindness and compassion; who satisfies your years with good things, so that your youth is renewed like the eagle. 

Psalm 103:2-5

Righteously-

The Lord performs righteous deeds and judgments for all who are oppressed. He made known His ways to Moses, His acts to the sons of Israel. The Lord is compassionate and gracious, slow to anger and abounding in lovingkindness. He will not always strive with us, nor will He keep His anger forever. He has not dealt with us according to our sins, nor rewarded us according to our iniquities. For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so great is His lovingkindness to those who fear Him. As far as the east is from the west, so far has He removed our transgressions from us. 

Psalm 103:6-12

Tenderly-

Just as a father has compassion on his children, so the Lord has compassion on those who fear Him. For He Himself knows our frame; He is mindful that we are but dust. 

Psalm 103:13-14

Tenaciously-

For I am convinced that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor any other created thing, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.

Romans 8:38-39