Reintroduced to God as Father

God

Many people’s experience with earthly fathers taint the idea of God as Heavenly Father. We...

March 22, 2021

Many people’s experience with earthly fathers taint the idea of God as Heavenly Father. We cannot follow God fully if we are unable to embrace Him as Father.

The Importance of Fatherhood

If God wanted us to treat Him like a general, Jesus would have come as a soldier.
If God wanted us to treat Him like a boss, Jesus would have come as a worker.
If God wanted us to treat Him like a concept, Jesus would have come as a student.
Since God wanted us to treat Him as a Father, Jesus came as a Son.

The Father’s Presence

The very fact that we are children of God means that God wanted us to be His in the first place.

1 John 3:1 ESV ¹ See what kind of love the Father has given to us, that we should be called children of God; and so we are. The reason why the world does not know us is that it did not know him.
2 Corinthians 6:18 ESV ¹⁸ and I will be a father to you, and you shall be sons and daughters to me, says the Lord Almighty.”
Ephesians 1:5 ESV ⁵ he predestined us for adoption to himself as sons through Jesus Christ, according to the purpose of his will,
Jeremiah 31:20 ESV ²⁰ Is Ephraim my dear son? Is he my darling child? For as often as I speak against him, I do remember him still. Therefore my heart yearns for him; I will surely have mercy on him, declares the Lord.

The Father’s Provision

There has never been a need that God did not provide for His children.

Galatians 4:6–7 ESV ⁶ And because you are sons, God has sent the Spirit of his Son into our hearts, crying, “Abba! Father!” ⁷ So you are no longer a slave, but a son, and if a son, then an heir through God.
John 1:12 ESV ¹² But to all who did receive him, who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God,
James 1:17 ESV ¹⁷ Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of lights, with whom there is no variation or shadow due to change.

The Father’s Protection

God dwells in the places where we need Him most.

Deuteronomy 1:30–31 ESV ³⁰ The Lord your God who goes before you will himself fight for you, just as he did for you in Egypt before your eyes, ³¹and in the wilderness, where you have seen how the Lord your God carried you, as a man carries his son, all the way that you went until you came to this place.’
Psalm 68:5 ESV ⁵ Father of the fatherless and protector of widows is God in his holy habitation.
Psalm 103:13 ESV ¹³ As a father shows compassion to his children, so the Lord shows compassion to those who fear him.

The Father’s Purpose

To embrace God as Father means to engage in the family business.

Isaiah 64:8 ESV ⁸ But now, O Lord, you are our Father; we are the clay, and you are our potter; we are all the work of your hand.
Matthew 10:20 ESV ²⁰ For it is not you who speak, but the Spirit of your Father speaking through you.
John 5:17 ESV ¹⁷ But Jesus answered them, “My Father is working until now, and I am working.”

The Father’s Precedent

Since God is our Father, we need no other example to emulate.

John 14:9 ESV ⁹ Jesus said to him, “Have I been with you so long, and you still do not know me, Philip? Whoever has seen me has seen the Father. How can you say, ‘Show us the Father’?
Malachi 2:10 ESV ¹⁰ Have we not all one Father? Has not one God created us? Why then are we faithless to one another, profaning the covenant of our fathers?
1 John 3:10 ESV ¹⁰ By this it is evident who are the children of God, and who are the children of the devil: whoever does not practice righteousness is not of God, nor is the one who does not love his brother.