Tag: God the Father

Reflective Focus

Our Father’s Love Demonstrated

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Jesus answered and said to him, “If anyone loves Me, he will keep My word; and My Father will love him, and We will come to him and make Our home with him (John 14:23).

Unique, awesome, incredible and overwhelming are just a few words that are overused and misused. And yet there is one area where each one of these words does appropriately apply: the love of God our Heavenly Father.

An earthly father cannot perfectly duplicate the love of God our Father, but he can, through His grace, come close. Although the same principles below apply to mothers as well, God has given fathers a special place in a child’s life. A child often visualizes God the Father by what he knows of his own earthly father – a great responsibility, to be sure, and one not to be taken lightly. A person’s life has often been affected positively or negatively by his father’s influence. What a blessing a person has when her own father strives to be the kind of father God is to His children.

Children know when they are loved. A father’s love is demonstrated when he is:

PRESENT AND INVOLVED

For You formed my inward parts; You covered me in my mother’s womb… Your eyes saw my substance, being yet unformed. And in Your book they all were written, the days fashioned for me, when as yet there were none of them (Psalm 139:15-16). 

You are near, O Lord, and all Your commandments are truth (Psalm 119:151).

Behold what manner of love the Father has bestowed on us, that we should be called children of God! (1 John 3:1a).

A child needs his father’s involvement more than anything money can buy. A father can become involved in his child’s life long before his birth. Along with his mother, the father plans for the arrival of the child. He is so proud to call the newborn baby “his” child and makes every attempt to be near him as much as possible – involved in every aspect of his life. This is every bit as true in the case of an adopted child – planned for and loved even before the first meeting. No expense or effort is too much. A father’s love for his child properly exercised is sacrificial and all consuming.

DISCIPLINING

For whom the Lord loves He corrects, Just as a father the son in whom he delights (Proverbs 3:12).

A godly father takes the time to correct those things that need to be righted. An indulgent father sometimes thinks that allowing his child to make choices before she is ready and giving her everything she asks for is showing love. In reality it is neglect. It takes more care, time and love to mold a child’s character than it does to grant her every wish.

MERCIFUL

For the Lord your God is a merciful God…(Deuteronomy 4:31). Be merciful to me according to Your word (Psalm 119:58b).

A godly father is merciful – strong in guidance and discipline but swift to show mercy. Knowing that he has been shown mercy and grace by his heavenly Father, a godly father passes on what he has learned about the everlasting and faithful grace of God to his child.

A HELPER

And I will pray the Father, and He will give you another Helper, that He may abide with you forever—… But the Helper, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in My name, He will teach you all things, and bring to your remembrance all things that I said to you (John 14:16, 26).

A godly father spends time helping a child accomplish what he is capable of doing at his age. He does not do it for him, but stands ready to give advice or assist when needed. It is much easier to take over the task and do it, but the child will learn best by doing – with possible assistance – than watching his father do it. “How may I help you?” is much better than “Let me do that for you.”

A REFUGE

The eternal God is your refuge, and underneath are the everlasting arms… (Deuteronomy 33:27).

…Be strong and of good courage; do not be afraid, nor be dismayed, for the Lord your God is with you wherever you go (Joshua 1:9)

The world is full of painful experiences. A godly father can offer refuge from those times – a band aid and comfort, a shoulder to cry on, a listening ear or just the knowledge that he is there if needed.

A DEFENDER

…God is for me (Psalm 56:9) …God is my defense (Psalm 59:9) The Lord God is a sun and shield…(Psalm 84:11) Every word of God is pure; He is a shield to those who put their trust in Him (Proverbs 30:5)

for the Lord your God is He who goes with you, to fight for you against your enemies, to save you (Deuteronomy 20:4) …for the Lord your God is He who fights for you, as He has promised you (Joshua 23:10)

A child not only needs a refuge – a place to go when times get tough, but someone who will fight for him when the bullies of life appear. A loving dependable father makes all the difference.

God the Father is our refuge and strength. Through His Son Jesus Christ, He fought sin’s battle for us and won. Through His Holy Spirit, He provides an Advocate for reconciliation. And there is nothing that can separate those who trust Him from His love. For I am persuaded that neither death nor life, nor angels nor principalities nor powers, nor things present nor things to come, nor height nor depth, nor any other created thing, shall be able to separate us from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord (Romans 8:38-39). What a unique, awesome, incredible and overwhelming demonstration of Fatherly love – one worth striving to duplicate.

© Stephanie B. Blake

April 2016

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Word Focus

God as our Heavenly Father

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“What is a Christian? The question can be answered in many ways, but the richest answer I know is that a Christian is one who has God for his Father.” – J.I. Packer

What are your thoughts about God as your heavenly Father? 

People often form their opinion of God the Father based on their experiences with their own earthly fathers. If a person is fortunate enough to have a Christian father, those experiences bear some resemblance to God as Father. There are many, though, who had very bad models of fatherhood. Their perception of God as Father is quite different from someone who had a Christian father. However, all comparisons fall short of who our Heavenly Father really is.

Backward Thinking  

When we apply our father’s attributes to God, we get it backwards. God came first. He created our earthly fathers. They needed salvation, just as we do. God Himself is the model Father. Our error in thinking about the family of God, and God as our Father, comes from our perspective.

When we view God as Father through the filter of family as we know it, we will always have faulty thinking. For instance:

  • If we are reluctant to take responsibility for disciplining our children, we may judge His commandments as harsh and resent His discipline.
  • If we were never able to have a good conversation with our own fathers, we may have trouble approaching God as “Abba, Father.”
  • If our father was selfish and did not work to provide adequately for his family, we may be hesitant to believe that our Father can and will provide for our needs.
  • If we had an absentee father, we may have difficulty knowing that God the Father will give us protection and guidance and be there when we need Him.
  • If we had a father who did not keep his promises, we may have problems believing He means what He says.
  • If we had a father whose comments tore us down instead of building us up, we may not see God as trustworthy and loving.
  • If we had a godly Christian father, we may still limit God in our thinking because our father had limitations simply because he was human.

God is able to do far more than our earthly fathers were capable of doing. Still, God instituted the family. He gave us fathers as examples. He instilled in them the desire to provide for, protect and guide their children. We just need to make sure that in our thinking about God as Father that we do not limit Him in any way.

How does God become our Heavenly Father?

 To be part of God’s family is to have come to a point in your life where you have believed in His Son with all your heart. To have God as Father is an act of the grace of God: Father, Son and Holy Spirit.

Read and discuss the following scriptures and notice the involvement of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit in the promises given to a believer.

How does one become a child of God?

If you confess with your mouth the Lord Jesus and believe in your heart that God has raised him from the dead, you will be saved. For with the heart one believes unto righteousness, and with the mouth confession is made unto salvation (Romans 10:9-10).

What happens to a Christian when he dies?

. . . unless one is born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God. . . unless one is born of water and the Spirit, he cannot enter the kingdom of God. That which is born of the flesh is flesh, and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit. . . For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life (John 3:3, 5-6, 16).

What does God promise to give to His children?

But God, who is rich in mercy, because of His great love with which He loved us, even when we were dead in trespasses, made us alive together with Christ (by grace you have been saved), and raised us up together, and made us sit together in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, that in the ages to come He might show the exceeding riches of His grace in His kindness toward us in Christ Jesus. . . For through Him we both have access by one Spirit to the Father (Ephesians 2:4-6,18).

God is all about family. Jesus demonstrated how we, as adopted children, can relate to God as Father. We can have the same relationship to the Father that Jesus has because He lives in us.

Adoptions are expensive and enormously time consuming. Those going through the adoption process reveal that they really want a child. Most parents adopt because they cannot have children any other way. God had a Son, but He and His Son desired to add to their family.

God does not need us, but He does want us. The adoption process that God went through proves His love for us.

An Inheritance is Not Earned 

An inheritance is not earned. It is something that is bestowed upon a loved one. Sometimes a parent will make a distinction in their inheritance between a natural child and an adopted child. God, our Father, makes no distinction. In what might be called His Will and Testament, Jesus asked the Father to include His adopted children in His inheritance (John 17). See Hebrews 8:13, 9:15-17. Finally, the covenant was complete (Hebrew 13:20-21). What we could not do to fulfill our part of a covenant with God, Jesus did for us.

And if you are Christ’s, then you are Abraham’s seed, and heirs according to the promise (Galatians 3:29).

Grace Changes Everything

Believers in Christ no longer live under the judgment of law although the law still provides practical guidelines for living. Adopted children of God live under love, not law. God’s goal for His children is to make them holy (Matthew 5:48). He wants us to become like Him. He sent Jesus not only to die for our sins and obtain a place in His family, but also to set an example. God knows our hearts and examines our hearts for His standard of holiness.

For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also (Matthew 6:21).

See how great a love the Father has bestowed on us, that we would be called the children of God, and such we are. . . And everyone who has this hope fixed on Him purifies himself, just as He is pure (1 John 3:1, 3 NAS).

Reflect on the gift of God’s love as Father and the sacrifice of His Son Jesus in order to bring us into His family.

© Stephanie B. Blake

Scripture references are from the New King James Version

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Word Focus

What Jesus Says About God the Father

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Jesus constantly talked about God the Father. He was sent by the Father to redeem man, but although He chose for a time to be confined to earth, He was never separated from the Father except for one time.  His greatest suffering came from being alone on the cross, feeling forsaken by the Father.

Throughout His life, Jesus was about His Father’s business. He reminded His mother of that when He stayed behind in the temple at twelve years old. His mission and work was to do the will of His Father.

My Father, Your Father, Our Father

Jesus used personal possessive pronouns when referring to God, the Father. In every way, God is His Father. Jesus, as part of the Godhead, has a more intimate relationship with the Father than any other human being could have. He has always had an intimate relationship with “My Father.”

He and the Father are One. “Then God said, ‘Let Us make man in Our image, according to Our likeness…In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God” (Genesis 1:26, John 1:1-2). His declaration of His relationship to His Father was what led to His death on the cross.

We have access to God the Father through God the Son. When addressing those who believe in Him, He refers to God as your Father. A Christian’s relationship to God the Father is intimate because of his adoption into God’s family. Jesus came to add to HIs family. When someone comes to Him in faith, He acknowledged that God is now your Father.

In conversation with His disciples, He talked about our Father. Jesus gave His life in order to share His Father with us. God the Father is our Father.

To Jesus, God the Father is My Father. He refers to your Father when talking to His disciples. Together with Jesus, as His brothers and sisters, God the Father is our Father. God our Father loves the Son, and loves those who love Him.

“if anyone loves Me, he will keep My word; and My Father will love him, and We will come to him and make Our home with him” (John 14:23)

Reflection and Discussion

How does each verse below address your relationship to God as your Father?

  • “Let your light shine before men, that they may see your good works and glorify your Father in heaven” (Matthew 5:16).
  • “Therefore you shall be perfect, just as your Father in heaven is perfect” (Matthew 5:48).
  • “But when you do a charitable deed, do not let your left hand know what your right hand is doing, that your charitable deed may be in secret; and your Father who sees in secret will Himself reward you openly” (Matthew 6:3-4).
  • “But you, when you pray, go into your room, and when you have shut your door, pray to your Father who is in the secret place; and your Father who sees in secret will reward you openly” (Matthew 6:6).
  • “In this manner, therefore, pray: Our Father in heaven. . .” (Matthew 6:9).
  • “For if you forgive men their trespasses, your heavenly Father will also forgive you” (Matthew 6:14).
  • “But you, when you fast, anoint your head and wash your face, so that you do not appear to men to be fasting, but to your Father who is in the secret place; and your Father who sees in secret will reward you openly” (Matthew 6:17-18).
  • “Therefore do not worry, saying, ‘What shall we eat?’ or “What shall we drink’ or ‘What shall we wear?’ For after all these things the Gentiles seek. For your heavenly Father knows that you need all these things” (Matthew 6:31-32).
  • “If you then, being evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father who is in heaven give good things to those who ask Him!” (Matthew 7:11).
  • “Not everyone who says to Me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ shall enter the kingdom of heaven, but he who does the will of My Father in heaven” (Matthew 7:21).
  • “In My Father’s house are many mansions; if it were not so, I would have told you. I go to prepare a place for you” (John 14:2).
  • “I am the way, the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through Me. If you had known Me, you would have known My Father also; and from now on you know Him and have seen Him” (John 14:7).
  •  “You have heard Me say to you, ‘I am going away and coming back to you.’ If you loved Me, you would rejoice because I said, ‘I am going to the Father,’ for My Father is greater than I” (John 14:28).
  • “I am the true vine, and My Father is the vinedresser” (John 15:1).
  • “By this My Father is glorified, that you bear much fruit; so you will be My disciples. As the Father loved Me, I also have 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” (John 15:8-10).
  • “No longer do I call you servants, for a servant does not know what a master is doing; but I have called you friends, for all things that I have heard from My Father I have made known to you. You did not choose Me, but I chose you and appointed you that you should go and bear fruit, and that your fruit should remain, that whatever you ask the Father in My name He may give you” (John 15:15-16).
  • “He who hates Me hates My Father also” (John 15:23).
  •  “I came forth from the Father and have come into the world. Again, I leave the world and go to the Father” (John 16:28).
  • “Now I am no longer in the world, but these are in the world, and I come to You. Holy Father, keep through Your name those whom You have given Me, that they may be one as We are. . . But now I come to You, and these things I speak in the world, that they may have My joy fulfilled in themselves. . . I do not pray for these alone, but also for those who will believe in Me through their word; that they all may be one, as You, Father, are in Me, and I in You; that they also may be One in Us, that the world may believe that You sent me” (John 17:11, 13, 20-21).

What does it mean for you to have God as your Father?

© Stephanie B. Blake

Scriptures are taken from the New King James Version

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Reflective Focus

Relating to God as Father

by  • 

“What is a Christian? The question can be answered in many ways, but the richest answer I know is that a Christian is one who has God for His Father.” – J.I. Packer

What are your thoughts about God as your Heavenly Father?

People often form their opinion of God the Father based on their experiences with their own earthly fathers. If a person is fortunate enough to have a good Christian father, those experiences bear some resemblance to God as Father. There are many, though, who had very bad models of fatherhood. Their perception of God as Father may be quite different. However, all comparisons fall short of God, our Heavenly Father.

Backward Thinking

When we apply our father’s attributes to God, we get it backwards. God created our fathers. God came first. Everything that a father should be God is.

Every limitation our fathers had, every mistake they made is because they were born into sin, just like the rest of us. The standard of measurement as a father is God whose love and ways are perfect.

Our error in thinking about the family of God, and God as our Father, comes from our perspective. When we view God as Father through the filter of family as we know it, there will always be faulty thinking.

If we are reluctant to take responsibility for disciplining our children, we may judge His commandments as harsh and resent His discipline in our own lives.

If we were never able to have a good conversation with our own fathers, we may have difficulty praying and approaching God intimately as “Abba, Father.”

If our father was selfish and did not work to provide adequately for his family, we may be hesitant to believe that our Father can and will provide for our needs.

If we had an absentee father, we may have difficulty knowing that God the Father will give us protection and guidance and be there when we need Him.

If we had a father who did not keep his promises, we may have problems believing God means what He says.

If we had a father whose comments tore us down instead of building us up, we may not see God as trustworthy and loving.

If we had a godly Christian father, we may still limit God in our thinking because our father had limitations simply because He was human. God is able to do far more than our earthly fathers were capable of doing.

God the Father loves us so much that He paid the price for adoption

Adoption is never accidental. It is an expensive and enormously time-consuming process. Parents who adopt a child reveal  – through their sacrifices – that they really want that child. Most parents adopt because they cannot have children any other way. God has a Son, but He and His Son desired to add to their family. The cost of our adoption was the sacrificial death of God’s Son on the cross. God is Creator of all, but only Father to those who believe in His Son.

“Adoption is a family idea, conceived in terms of love, and viewing God as father. In adoption, God takes us into His family and fellowship, and establishes us as His children and heirs. Closeness, affection and generosity are at the heart of the relationship. To be right with God the judge is a great thing, but to be loved and cared for by God the father is greater” (Knowing God, J.I. Packer).

God the Father shares His heart and searches for those who share their hearts with Him

The Lord has sought for Himself a man after His own heart (1 Samuel 13:14). For the eyes of the Lord move to and fro throughout the earth that He may strongly support those whose heart is completely His (2 Chronicles 16:9 NAS).

God’s children can grieve and pierce His heart by disobeying Him and doubting Him. They can, however, please Him greatly with their trust and faith in Him.

A small child may be tempted to touch a hot stove. If he trusts his father, he will save himself a lot of misery by obeying his father when he is told not to touch the stove. He doesn’t have to understand what a burn feels like to trust his father. His father knows, though, and wants to save him from pain.

A child of God never understands everything God tells him to do. If he trusts and obeys Him, he will not only please His father, but protect himself. God reserves a secret place for those who trust Him. You can trust the heart of your Father.

He who dwells in the secret place of the Most High shall abide under the shadow of the Almighty.  I will say of the Lord, “He is my refuge and my fortress; My God, in Him I will trust” (Psalm 91:1-2).

© Stephanie B. Blake

November 2011

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