GodSprings - 25, March, 2017

What’s So Great to Have Him As Father?

Our Father in heaven

Luke 6:9b

What is God like? This is a question, which has exercised the minds of mankind. It reminds me of the story of the little girl who was in deep concentration over her drawing. Her mother asked her what she was drawing and received the curt reply, “God.” Her mother protested, “But no one knows what God looks like!” The little girl replied, “They will now!”  

The Pharisees and the scribes and the Jewish people who followed their teaching had taken prayer from what God intended it to be. They had created a perverted, substandard and non-scriptural kind of prayer. Jesus is confronting them and he says this is how you pray.

He begins the prayer by saying, “Our Father in heaven.” God is our Father or in modern terms our Daddy. It is a term of great intimacy. It is a term that makes us feel that we belong to a family.

This is a God who cares. This is best illustrated by Jesus himself as he told the parable of the lost son in Luke 15:11-35. A beautiful story about a father who was not loved by both the sons. This father was able to forgive the elder son who stayed home and was self-righteous and also the younger son who left home and was unrighteous. He forgave them both and he offered them both all that he possessed.

The story beautifully brings out the image of who God is for us. He is the Father who cares for his children. Even though the children are religious or irreligious, moral or immoral this is a father who cares and loves.

He is a God who never lets his children go. He loves his children with an everlasting love that is faithful and loyal no matter what happens.

When we were far away, he loved us. When we turned our back on him, he loved us. When we broke his law, he loved us. When we went our own way, he loved us. When we said, “Leave us alone, we don’t want you around anymore,” he said, “I am going to stay around anyway. When we ran, he followed. When we hid, he found us. When we cursed him to his face, he just smiled and said, “I love you anyway.”

The Lord’s prayer answers the greatest question that most of us ask at some point of time. Is there anybody up there who cares about me? This prayer is the answer to the deepest problem of humankind.

Every time that we say, “our Father”, we are sure and we know that we are not lost in the crowd. We know He is there removing our fear, providing hope and taking away loneliness.

This Lenten season can we remove the doubts about our prayers being heard? He didn’t just make us servants to do His will. He didn’t just call us friends. But He has made us sons and daughters and children.