Our Father
“Pray then like this: Our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name.”
Matthew 6:9 (ESV)
God is a Father. Jesus is the beloved Son with whom the Father is well pleased, ‘And a voice came from heaven, “You are my beloved Son; with you I am well pleased.”’ (Mark 1:11). God is also love.
Jesus acknowledges that God is certainly His Father, but astonishingly, Jesus said that God is also our Father. He showed us that, in the well known Lord’s Prayer which He taught to the disciples and also in His conversation with Mary Magdalene in John 20:17,
Jesus said to her, “Do not cling to me, for I have not yet ascended to the Father; but go to my brothers and say to them, ‘I am ascending to my Father and your Father, to my God and your God.’”
Jesus made it very clear that believers are the children of God and that God is just as much their Father as He is His Father.
What a blessing, privilege and honour to be known as the sons and daughters of the great majestic creator God. For us, it does not get any better! We may appear to be ordinary human beings living here on earth, but in reality we are the sons and daughters of the Majesty on high, the God of the universe. Believers are the children of the living God.
See what great love the Father has lavished on us, that we should be called children of God! And that is what we are! The reason the world does not know us is that it did not know Him. Dear friends, now we are children of God, … 1 John 3:1-2 (NIVUK).
The relationship with God as our Father is not a casual relationship, it is an intimate loving relationship:
Because you are His sons [and daughters], God sent the Spirit of His Son into our hearts, the Spirit who calls out, ‘Abba, Father.’ So you are no longer a slave, but God’s child; and since you are His child, God has made you also an heir. (Galatians 4:6-7 NIVUK).
The Father knows each of us intimately. He is forming the very image of the beloved Son in us, to fulfil the specific roles that He has planned out from eternity for each of His beloved children. We have a Father who cares for us and loves us deeply.
Prayer
Eternal Father, please enable me to humble myself under your mighty hand and to completely surrender my life to you, for there is nothing better that I can do with my life. Amen
Study by Sherwin Scott
About the writer:
Sherwin Scott is a deacon in Grace Communion Church in Lewes.
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Local congregation:
Grace Communion in Lewes
The House of Friendship
208 High Street
Lewes
BN7 2NS
Meeting time:
Sunday 11:00am
Local congregational contact:
Hilary Buck: lewes@gracecom.church
Word of Life contact:
Email: wordoflife@gracecom.church