God's Father-Love

What if relationship with God was just that?  A relationship with God as loving Father.  How would that change our approach to Him?  How would that influence our behavior?  Would that make relationship with God more appealing?  Perhaps it would depend on who God is.  God describes Himself as Father, and when we accept what He has done for us in Jesus for the salvation of our souls, we become children of God (positionally in a spiritual sense).  The Gospel of John, Chapter 1, verses 12-13 describe this: "But as many as received Him, to them He gave the right to become children of God, even to those who believe in His name, who were born, not of blood nor of the will of the flesh nor of the will of man, but of God."

So what does this relationship with the Father as spiritually adopted children look like?  Andrew Murray, a 19th century writer describes this in With Christ in the School of Prayer, beginning with the opening line of the "Lord's Prayer". 

"Our Father which art in heaven."  Alas! We speak it only as a reverential homage.  We think of it as a figure borrowed from an eartly life, and only in some faint and shallow meaning to be used of God.  We are afraid to take God as our tender Father.  We think of Him as a school-master or an inspector, who knows nothing about us except through our lessons. 
 

Now open the ears of your heart, timid child of God!  We aren't supposed to learn to be holy as a hard lesson at school so we can make God think well of us.  We are to learn it at home with the Father to help us.  God loves you not because you are clever or good, but because He is your Father.  The Cross of Christ does not make God love us.  It is the outcome of His love to us.  He loves all His children: the clumsiest, the dullest, and the worst.  His love lies underneath everything.  We must grasp it as the solid foundation of our religious life, not growing up into that love, but growing up out of it.  We must begin there or our beginning will come to nothing.  Grasp this mightily!  We must go beyond ourselves for any hope, strength, or confidence.  And what hope, what strength, what confidence may be ours when we begin with "Our Father which art in heaven"! 
 

We need to feel the tenderness and helpfulness which lie in these words.  Meditate on the words our Father.   Say them over to yourself until you feel something of their wonderful truth.  They mean that I am bound to God by the closest and tenderest relationship, and that I have a right to His love, His power, and His blessing in a way no one else could give me.  Imagine the boldness with which we can approach Him!  Imagine the great things we have a right to ask for!  Our Father.  It means that all His infinite love, patience, and wisdom reach down to help me.  There is infinitely more implied by this relationship than the possibility of holiness. 
 

We are to begin in the patient love of our Father.  Think about how He knows us personally, as individuals with all our peculiarities, our weaknesses, and our difficulties.  The master judges by the result, but our Father judges by the effort.  Failure does not always mean fault.  He knows how much things cost and weighs them carefully where others wouldn't.  Our Father.  Think about how His great love understands the poor beginnings of His little ones, clumsy and simple as they may seem to others.  All this and infinitely more lies in this blessed relationship!  Don't be afraid to claim it as your own! 
 

The Bible says that "For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son that whoever believes in Him shall not perish but have everlasting life."  And again, "In this is love, not that we loved God, but that He loved us and sent His Son to be the propitiation for our sins." Or, "But God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. Much more then, having now been justified by His blood, we shall be saved from the wrath of God through Him. For if while we were enemies we were reconciled to God through the death of His Son, much more, having been reconciled, we shall be saved by His life. And not only this, but we also exult in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have now received the reconciliation."

So in believing in and accepting what Jesus has done for us as a sacrifice for our sins, God grants us the righteousness of Christ in exchange for our sin and gives us the right to become children of God.  And because Jesus rose from the dead, God's promise of eternal life is a certainty.  He defeated death!  And this begins that relationship with God as Father, described above.  And that relationship is just the beginning!  Appealing isn't it? 

Where do you stand with God?  Do you have that relationship with Him?  Would you want that?  It's yours to request.  God has made that relationship with Him as Lord and Father available to us through Jesus Christ.  Will you accept Him as Lord and Savior? 

If you know Him already, are you approaching God as the loving Father?  We can.  God wanted that so much He died for us and rose again to make that possible.  What a loss if we do not!