One Prayer - God is Father | Message Recap 6.21.09
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Empowering? Performance-based? Absent? Abusive? Passive? Do any of these words describe your earthly father and your relationship with him? Does he empower you in a way that helps the trajectory of your life move forward? Do you try to find his certainty in doing the right thing in your performance? Maybe your father is pursuing his own life and not around. Perhaps his manipulative ways have wounded you, and he has left you feeling at fault about things. If your father is absent or abusive, you may have an erosion of trust in men, or lack of self-esteem, as a result. Do you have a passive father who lacks leadership?
We have been created with an innate desire to be blessed by our earthly fathers. The blessings of a father are affirmation, approval, acceptance, active participation and spoken belief--we need to hear our fathers tell us they love us and are there with us and for us. Jesus' Father blessed Him through spoken belief in Matthew 3:17: And a voice from heaven said, 'This is my Son, whom I love; with him I am well pleased.'
There is a need for us to respond to our Heavenly Father that is often distorted by the viewpoints of our earthly fathers. Our Heavenly Father is perfect, but it's easy for that to get lost in translation when we try to view Him through the image of our earthly fathers. This is one of Satan's greatest tools, as we are meant to have a fatherly relationship with God, and he takes destructive experiences many have had with their earthly fathers and uses them to distort this expression of God's love for us. This increases difficulty of being as close to God as we can be.
Throughout Scriptures, Jesus refers to God as "Father" 189 times. In Matthew 5:48, He says, be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect. John 14:9 says, anyone who has seen me has seen the Father. We are given an example of God's perfect love in 1 John 3:1: How great is the love the Father has lavished on us, that we should be called children of God! And that is what we are!
The Bible gives an example of the love of earthly fathers and the Heavenly Father in Matthew 7:11: If you, then, though you are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father in heaven give good gifts to those who ask him!
Everything the Heavenly Father says is true. Everying He does and every motive He has is pure. Everything He heard He understands. When He disciplines it's always fair and it's always for the best. Everything He promises He delivers on. He will never leave or forsake you. This is what Jesus may say about His Father.
There is always hope in the Heavenly Father. Psalm 27:10 says, though my father and mother forsake me, the LORD will receive me.
We have a new power in our lives, and can stand under Him.
And because we are his children, God has sent the Spirit of his Son into our hearts, prompting us to call out, “Abba, Father.” Now you are no longer a slave but God’s own child. And since you are his child, God has made you his heir (Galatians 4:6,7).
His divine power has given us everything we need for life and godliness through our knowledge of him who called us by his own glory and goodness (2 Peter 1:3).
