Matthew 6:9
“So do not be like them; for your Father knows what you need before you ask Him. ‘Pray, then, in this way: Our Father who is in heaven.”
To progress in spiritual life, you need two things: reading the Word of God and prayer. Prayer is our way of speaking to God, while studying the Word is God’s way of speaking to us. These two things are the primary, divinely ordained means of connection between man and God. The Bible says that we should be unceasingly involved in both, constantly, daily, night and day, feeding on the Word of God. We must constantly, unceasingly, and daily respond to God in communion with Him. This should be our constant practice. Great men of God live in the spirit of prayer. As I pray, I walk, I lie down, and I rise. Prayer is a way of life.
Who can teach us to pray properly? How special is it that the glorious Son Himself is teaching us why, how, and what to pray? How blessed are we to sit at His feet and learn to pray? Millions do not know this and either pray to be seen by men or their prayer is a meaningless repetition. He taught us that our prayer needs to have a connection to our heart and mind, not just be a meaningless repetition. But how is it possible that most of our prayers are just meaningless? How many people pray from the heart? How many have a prayer life where words are the clothing and expression of our inner feelings? We all know that, in the name of prayer, we often engage in meaningless repetitions.
The only way to avoid meaningless repetition and ensure prayer comes from a truly heartfelt place is to know God as Father. He is such a loving and caring Father that He knows all we want before we even ask. If God knows my needs and loves us, why does He tell us to pray? Because prayer is not just asking. It is communion. It is simply opening my soul to the One who cares for me and communes with me. By asking for my basic needs, prayer allows God to reveal His glory. Prayer is saying, “Oh God, I come to You with the needs of my heart; please display Your glory.” Prayer gives God an occasion to manifest His power, majesty, might, love, providence, care, and concern through my needs. As creatures of God, we can never find our true place of blessing apart from a conscious dependence on God in prayer.
He begins the prayer in verse 9, which is called the Lord’s Prayer. I could spend a week just talking about the glory, depth, and comprehensiveness of this prayer. With its perfect seven petitions, it covers everything that all men and women should pray for their entire lives throughout all ages; nothing is left out. This is a testament to the great wisdom of our Lord. In verse 9, He says to pray “in this manner,” which does not mean to pray it exactly as it is, but to use it as a model, a pattern, and an outline. It is good to memorize this prayer and follow its pattern, allowing our prayer structure to always flow into this. Most of our prayers are very selfish and worldly. This prayer helps us reverse our foolish desire to make the earthly things foremost. The true purpose of prayer is to align our will with His, not to bend His will to ours. We will spend a week on each line, and I wish we could study every word. We will see how the Holy Spirit leads us. These are golden words. After we finish reading, I believe all our prayers will unconsciously follow this structure.
The first words in the Lord’s Prayer open with an ocean of truth. If you will allow me, I would love to preach on this topic for at least 10 weeks: the Fatherhood of God. This is one of the most blessed, comforting, and joyful truths, and it opens an ocean of love, allowing us to see our relationship with God in an entirely different way. If prayer is to go beyond meaningless repetitions, all true prayer begins with the recognition that God is our Father. There is a tremendous truth in that thought. “Father!” It is the language of filial love. How sweet is the voice of love as it pronounces the name of Father! What tenderness in its tones, what a world of meaning in the one title it breathes!
God is our Father, in our language, “Pita,” “Thandai,” “Appa,” or “Naina.” When we pray, “Our Father,” it reminds us of the precious relationship we have with God. We are a part of God’s family. We belong to God. Who can teach this truth to sinners like us? Lord Jesus Christ alone was competent to the task of teaching sinners who do not like to pray and find it a burden or boring. He can give us a new view of God and make prayer a great pleasure and joy, making us a praying people. His first lesson on prayer is to deeply realize that God is your Father; only then is prayer pleasant.
All the greatest scholars and teachers will say that the most sublime and unique of all the revelations of Jesus Christ is this, that God is our Father. We have kept hearing it so often that it sounds known and familiar, but did you know that before Jesus, God was never addressed as “Father?” Only Jesus Christ revealed this. Whether in general revelation—the whole creation, the ocean, the sky, the mountains, the forests, all the animals, plants, and trees with high beauty and wonder—not one syllable tells us we can approach God as Father. No Old Testament saint ever addressed God as Father. It was a unique revelation of Jesus Christ to know, to address, to believe, and to love our God as “our Father.”
This truth is not just words; Lord Jesus Himself is a perfect unveiling of the character of the Father. “He that has seen me has seen the Father.” It is as though He had said, “All my words, actions, life, and suffering; all the glory in me which entrances you, all the beauty in me which attracts you, all the truths from me which instruct you, all the love in me which joys you, all the grace in me which sanctifies you, all the sympathy in me which comforts you, all my miracles of power and acts of mercy which command your homage, enkindle your gratitude, and inspire your praise—all are the perfect reflection of Him from whose bosom I descended to make Him known to you as your Father.” He that has seen me has seen my Father also.
I came to reveal the parental heart of God. He who from eternity dwelt in the bosom of the Father alone could make known the love of God. I came to draw aside the veil and show us the infinite, eternally pulsating heart of the Father, with fatherly love. He alone felt its eternal throbbings—that the love of the Father was the moving cause of His sacrifice. “For God so loved the world that He gave His only Son.”
Behold the great truth that the Lord Jesus would teach you! He would elevate and enlarge your thought of the Father’s love, remove your distrust, melt your hardness, dissolve your insensibility, quell your fears, and awaken in your whole soul a responsive affection—a deep love. “The Father Himself loves you”—loves you with an individual and special affection—as much and as fully yours as if its deep pulsations throbbed only for you. He knows you by name, He formed you in your mother’s womb, from the day He took you from your mother’s womb, He has cared for you, and He is beside you. He knows everything about you; nothing happens to you without Him knowing it first. He has even numbered the very hairs on your head. He has loved you to the extent of the death of His Son. Upon Him, He laid your sins; of Him, He exacted your penalty; into His cup, He pressed all the bitterness of your sin and death and all the ingredients of your condemnation. He did all this for you, and He loves you. Will you not believe Him? Do not disbelieve or wound His love.
You may doubt the love of the mother who bore you, distrust the love of the one who married you, or question the love of the friend enshrined within your breast, but oh, do not doubt the love of your Father in heaven, who surrendered His only and well-beloved Son unto death for you!
Having thus revealed the parental relationship and character of God, our blessed Lord proceeds to inculcate the filial spirit that is fitting for His disciples in their approach to their heavenly Father. “When you pray, say, ‘Our Father, which art in heaven.'” The proper approach to God is filial. Any other approach stems from some defective view of the character of God or from a legal, servile state of the soul. Prayer is not useful, and if it is, it is a meaningless repetition.
Let us see the nature and privileges of this relationship. This is a very special relationship, and not everyone can call God Father. Jesus said to the Pharisees that their father was the devil. All men, though created by God, are fallen and depraved in sin, the seed of the serpent, and are called children of the devil. Only those who have been born again, believed in the Lord Jesus, been given a new nature, and adopted into the family of God can call God Father. God did not just save us from our sins and say, “Okay, live somewhere else.” Rather, He positively took us into His family by adopting us. This is the greatest blessing. As I have told you, it is not a regular human adoption. I can legally adopt a child, but biologically he cannot be my child or have my nature. But God not only adopted us, but through the Holy Spirit, He imparted His seed and nature in me and made me born of God. I have God’s nature in me. What an amazing privilege. Galatians 4:6 transliterates an Aramaic word because that is how Jesus called His Father. “Abba” is the most intimate word for a father. In adopting us, God gives us the very Spirit of His Son and grants us to feel the affections of belonging to the very family of God. Praise God that He gives us both legal standing as His children and the very Spirit of His Son so that we find ourselves saying from a heart of deep conviction, “Abba, Father.”
This adoption was not something that was planned just now. He chose us in Him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and blameless before Him. In love, He predestined us for adoption as sons through Jesus Christ, according to the purpose of His will, to the praise of His glorious grace, with which He has blessed us in the Beloved (Ephesians 1:4-6).
Also, it is not because we were cute. God did not find us like an abandoned foundling bundled on a front step who was irresistibly cute. He found us ugly, evil, and rebellious. We were not attractive. We would not be easy children to deal with. And, what is worse, God Himself was angry with us. He hates sin and rebellion. We were then doubly “children of wrath.” These are the ones God pursued in adoption. The distance between what we are and what God is is infinitely greater than any distance between us and a child we might adopt. God crossed the greatest barrier to redeem and adopt us through His Son. To bring us to God, Christ had to pay a great sacrifice. He had to suffer and be abandoned on the cross for three hours, crying, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” and the veil was torn in two. This was so that we could not only enter the holy place but boldly enter and call the holy God, “Abba, Father.”
After such eternal love, such an act of mercy, and such a condescension of grace, to approach God in prayer with trembling doubt on the lips, with the fetters of a slave on the soul, with distrust, suspicion, and coldness in the heart, would be of the darkest hue. If God calls me His child, I am ungrateful not to respond, “My Father!” Are you a parent? Does your child doubt his relationship to you as such? What would you think of it if he did?
The deep, underlying principle of all his love, reverence, and obedience is the full confidence he has in you as his parent. Have this same precious faith in your heavenly Father. Let your faith be filial, childlike, and firm. Believe that all He does is for the best; that your highest interests are all in His hands, and in His hands, they are all secure. Lock your hand in His, as your little one links its hand with yours, willing to be led, unquestioning, confident, and meek, just where your Father leads. If God declares, “I am a Father to Israel,” it is the deepest humility of faith to respond, “My Father, God!”
This will impart sweetness to your Father’s commands, will expel all reservations from your obedience, and invest your service for Him with the most perfect freedom. God asks for the love that casts out all slavish fear. He wants you to love Him intensely as a Parent. And you will love Him. You will love Him in poverty, you will love Him in sickness, you will love Him in suffering, you will love Him in chastening, and you will love Him in rebuke. And in that sleepless night, and on that bed of pain, and from that chamber of solitude and sorrow, the fragrant incense of your filial love ascends to Him in solemn prayer and praise, while you cry, “My Father, it is Your hand that chastens, and it is well!”
I cannot tell you what that feels like; but if you have felt it, you will know it. It is a sweet combination of a faith that knows God to be my Father, a love that loves Him as my Father, a joy that rejoices in Him as my Father, a fear that trembles to disobey Him because He is my Father, and a confident affection and trustfulness that relies upon Him and casts itself wholly upon Him because it knows by the infallible witness of the Holy Spirit, that Jehovah, the God of earth and heaven, is the Father of my heart. Oh! Have you ever felt the spirit of adoption? There is nothing like it beneath the sky. Save heaven itself, there is nothing more blissful than to enjoy that spirit of adoption. Oh! When the wind of trouble is blowing, and waves of adversity are rising, and the ship is reeling to the rock, how sweet then to say, “My Father,” and to believe that His strong hand is on the helm!—when the bones are aching, and when the loins are filled with pain, and when the cup is brimming with wormwood and gall, to say, “My Father,” and seeing that Father’s hand holding the cup to your lip, to drink it steadily to the very dregs because we can say, “My Father, not my will, but Yours be done.” Well says Martin Luther, in his Exposition of the Galatians, “there is more eloquence in that word, ‘Abba, Father,’ than in all the orations of Demosthenes or Cicero put together.” “My Father!” Oh! there is music there; there is eloquence there; there is the very essence of heaven’s own bliss in that word, “My Father,” when applied to God, and when said by us with an unfaltering tongue, through the inspiration of the Spirit of the living God. So we need to pray for the Spirit of adoption to fill us so we can pray acceptably to our Father, whereby we cry, “Abba, Father?”
- This relationship involves infinite love. Whenever God takes on a relationship, He is the best at it. When God is a Husband, He is the best of husbands. When God is a Friend, He is the best of friends. When He is a Father, He is the best of fathers. O fathers! Perhaps you do not know how much you love your children. When they are sick, you find it out, for you stand by their couches and pity them, as their little bodies are writhing in pain. “Like as a father pities his children, so the Lord pities them that fear him.” We wish we could take that sickness ourselves. You know how you love your children, too, when they grieve you with their sin. Anger arises, and you are ready to chasten them, but no sooner is a tear in their eye than your hand feels heavy, and you feel that you would rather smite yourself than smite them. Every time you smite them, you seem to cry, “Oh that I should have to afflict my child for his sin! Oh that I could suffer in his stead!” And God, even our Father, “does not afflict willingly.” Like a father who cares for us, knowing what is good for us, He ordains our circumstances. He is, as it were, compelled to it; even the Eternal arm is not willing to do it; it is only His great love and deep wisdom that brings down the blow. We may think some things are not good for us, asking, “Why this or that?” But the Father knows what is better. Too much ease, a higher state, may bring pride and sin into our lives and spoil us. He is a Father in heaven and cares for our eternal good and soul, and He knows what is best. Is that not a sweet thing? Everything He does is out of love. Sometimes, even for His own Son, for 40 days, there was no food. Satan tempted Him, saying if He was God’s child, why was He in this state? He urged Him to take power into His own hands, not to depend on the Father, and to see His state.
God is the best Father in respect of wisdom. “The only wise God” (1 Timothy 1:17). He has a perfect idea of wisdom in Himself; He knows what is best for us. An earthly parent does not know, in some intricate cases, how to advise his child or what may be best for him to do; but God is a most wise Father; He knows what is best for us. He knows what comfort is best for us; He keeps His remedies for fainting. He knows when affliction is best for us and when it is fit to give a bitter potion. “If need be, you are in heaviness” (1 Peter 1:6). He is the only wise God; He knows how to make evil things work for good to His children (Romans 8:28). He can make a sovereign antidote of poison. Thus, He is the best Father for wisdom.
Adoption means that we suffer now and experience glory later. The Spirit Himself bears witness with our spirit that we are children of God, and if children, then heirs—heirs of God and fellow heirs with Christ—provided we suffer with Him in order that we may also be glorified with Him (Romans 8:16-17).
So this involves great love. All love from fathers in all ages is just a drop compared to the love of our Father. Go out at midnight and consider the heavens, the work of God’s fingers, the moon and the stars which he has ordained; and I am sure you will say, “What is man, that you should be mindful of him?” All the universe, planets, and myriads of angels exist. But, more than all, you will wonder, not at your loving him, but that while he has all these treasures, he should set his heart upon so insignificant a creature as man. And the sonship that God has given us is not a mere name; there is all of our Father’s great heart given to us in the moment when he claims us as his sons. He really cares for every small thing in our life in this relationship. How much does he care? Psalms 139:1-6: my sitting, rising, and thoughts are acquainted with all my ways. 4. For there is not a word on my tongue, but behold, O Lord, You know it altogether. 5. You have hedged me behind and before, and laid Your hand upon me. Limitless desire surrounds me. This word “our Father” opens a deep ocean of love. 2 Corinthians 1:13. Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of mercies and God of all comfort.
And now permit me to draw your attention to one encouraging thought that may help to cheer the downcast and Satan-tempted child of God. Sonship is a thing which all the infirmities of our flesh, and all the sins into which we are hurried by temptation, can never violate or weaken. A man has a child; however awful that child is, he is still a child. If that child has a sudden accident and a hand or leg is broken, or goes into a coma, existing only as a coma, apparently without a soul! But the comatose child is a child. Or if their mind is spoiled, the lunatic child is still a child; and if we are the fathers of such children they are ours, and all the accidents, sickness, lunacy that can possibly befall them can never shake the fact that they are our sons. Oh! what a mercy, when we transfer this to God’s case and ours! How foolish we are sometimes—how worse than foolish! We may say as David did, “I was as a beast before you.” God brings before us the truths of his kingdom; we cannot see their beauty, we cannot appreciate them; we seem to be as if we were totally demented, ignorant, unstable, weary, and apt to slide. But, thanks be unto God, we are his children still! And if there is anything worse that can happen to a father than his child becoming a lunatic or an idiot, it is when he grows up to be wicked. It is well said, “Children are doubtful blessings.” I remember to have heard one say, and, as I thought, not very kindly, to a mother with an infant at her breast—”Woman! you may be suckling a viper there.” It stung the mother to the quick, and it was not needed to have been said. But how often is it a fact, that the child that has hung upon its mother’s breast, when it grows up, brings that mother’s gray hairs with sorrow to the grave! “Oh! sharper than a serpent’s tooth to have a thankless child!”
If the child is ungodly, vile, debauched—a blasphemer! But mark, brothers and sisters: if he is a child he cannot lose his childship, nor we our fatherhood, be he who or what he may. Let him be transported beyond the seas, he is still our son; let us deny him the house because his conversation might lead others of our children into sin, yet our son he is, and must be, and when the sod shall cover his head and ours, “father and son” shall still be on the tombstone. The relationship can never be severed as long as time shall last. The prodigal was his father’s son when he was amongst the harlots and when he was feeding swine; and God’s children are God’s children anywhere and everywhere, and shall be even unto the end. Nothing can sever that sacred tie, or divide us from his heart.
There is yet another thought that may cheer the Little-faiths and Feeble minds. The fatherhood of God is common to all his children. Ah! Little-faith, you have often looked up to Mr. Great-heart/faiths, and you have said, “Oh that I had the courage of Great-heart, that I could wield his sword and cut old giant Grim into pieces! But I am stumbling at every straw, and a shadow makes me afraid.” Listen, Little-faith. Great-heart is God’s child, and you are God’s child too; and Great-heart is not a whit more God’s child than you are. David was the son of God, but not more the son of God than you. Peter and Paul, the highly-favored apostles, were of the family of the Most High; and so are you. You have children yourselves; one is a son grown up, and out in business, perhaps, and you have another, a little thing still in arms. Which is most your child, the little one or the big one? “Both alike,” you say. “This little one is my child near my heart and the big one is my child too.” And so the little Christian is as much a child of God as the great one.
And they are one in the family of God, and no one is ahead of the other. One may have more grace than another, but God does not love one more than another. One may be an older child than another, but he is not more a child; one may do more mighty works, and may bring more glory to his Father, but he whose name is the least in the kingdom of heaven is as much the child of God as he who stands among the king’s mighty men. Let this cheer and comfort us, when we draw near to God and say, “Our Father which are in heaven.”
A Double Argument that God will Hear our Prayers
And now, in the last place, I said that there was in the title, a double argument that God will hear our prayers. “Our Father.” That is, “Lord, hear what I have got to say. You are my Father.” If I come before a judge I have no right to expect that he shall hear me at any particular time in anything that I have to say. If I came merely to crave for some boon or benefit to myself, if the law were on my side, then I could demand an audience from him; but when I come as a law-breaker, and only come to crave for mercy, or for favors I do not deserve, I have no right to expect to be heard. But a child, even though he is erring, always expects his father will hear what he has to say. “Lord, if I call you King you will say, ‘You are a rebellious subject; get you gone.’ If I call you Judge you will say, ‘Be still, or out of your own mouth will I condemn you.’ If I call you Creator you will say unto me ‘It repents me that I made man upon the earth.’ If I call you my Preserver you will say unto me, ‘I have preserved you, but you have rebelled against me.’ But if I call you Father, all my sinfulness does not invalidate my claim. If you are my Father, then you love me; if I am your child, then you will regard me, and poor though my language may be, you will not despise it.”
But there is another argument. “Our Father.” “Lord, give me what I want.” If I come to a stranger, I have no right to expect he will give it to me. He may out of his charity; but if I come to a father, I have a claim, a sacred claim. My Father, I shall have no need to use arguments to move your bosom; I shall not have to speak to you as the beggar who cries in the street: for because you are my Father you know my wants, and you are willing to relieve me. It is your business to relieve me; I can come confidently to you, knowing you will give me all I want. There is a claim in the relationship.
Privileges of being God’s Children
Our being the children of God brings with it innumerable privileges. Time would fail me, if I were to attempt to read the long roll of the Christian’s joyous privileges. In this life, Provision: I am God’s child: if so, he will clothe me; my shoes shall be iron and brass; he will array me with the robe of my Saviour’s righteousness, for he has said, “Bring forth the best robe and put it on him,” and he has also said that he will put a crown of pure gold upon my head and inasmuch as I am a king’s son, I shall have a royal crown. Am I his child? Then he will feed me; my bread shall be given me, and my water shall be sure; he that feeds the ravens will never let his children starve. If a good husbandman feeds the barn-door fowl, and the sheep and the bullocks, certainly his children shall not starve. Does my Father deck the lily, and shall I go naked? Does he feed the fowls of the heaven that do not sow, neither do they reap, and shall I feel necessity? God forbid! My Father knows what things I have need of before I ask him, and he will give me all I want. If I am his child, then I have a portion in his heart here, and Protection: He will protect me from all evils as a Father protects us.
See my glorious eternal future. (Romans 8:16-17). The Spirit himself bears witness with our spirit that we are children of God, and if children, then heirs—heirs of God and fellow heirs with Christ, provided we suffer with him in order that we may also be glorified with him.
And oh! brothers and sisters, what a prospect this opens up! The fact of our being heirs of God and joint-heirs with Christ proves that all things are ours—the gift of God, the purchase of a Saviour’s blood. “This world is ours, and worlds to come; Earth is our lodge, and heaven our home.” Are there crowns? They are mine if I am an heir. Are there thrones? Are there dominions? Are there harps, palm branches, white robes? Are there glories that eye has not seen? and is there music that ear has not heard? All these are mine, if I am a child of God. “And it does not yet appear what we shall be, but we know that when he shall appear, we shall be like him, for we shall see him as he is.” Talk of princes, and kings, and potentates: Their inheritance is but a pitiful foot of land, across which a bird’s wing can soon direct its flight; but the broad acres of the Christian cannot be measured by eternity. He is rich, without a limit to his wealth. He is blessed, without a boundary to his bliss. All this, and more than I can enumerate, is involved in our being able to say, “Our Father which is in heaven.” All things are yours, whether Paul or Apollos or Cephas or the world or life or death or the present or the future—all are yours, and you are Christ’s, and Christ is God’s” (1 Corinthians 3:21).
But we think, “Oh, I am so poor now.” Peter says this is a child’s discipline and training time. He has to suffer, and learn to be faithful in little things. All of this world’s things will perish, but his inheritance is unfading, imperishable, and unblemished.
Go away with that upon your mind, and rejoice.
Application
But if this sonship involves the love of God to us, it also involves the duty of love to God. Oh! heir of heaven, if you are God’s child, will you not love your Father? What son is there that does not love his father? Is he not less than human if he does not love his sire? Let his name be blotted from the book of remembrance that does not love the woman that brought him forth, and the father that begot him. And we, the chosen favorites of heaven, adopted and regenerated, shall we not lose him? Shall we not say, “Whom have I in heaven but you, and there is none upon earth that I desire in comparison with you? My father, I will give you my heart; you shall be the guide of my youth; you do love me, and the little heart that I have shall be all yours forever.”
Furthermore, if we say “Our Father which is in heaven,” we must recollect that our being sons involves the duty of obedience to God. When I say “My Father,” it is not for me to rise up and go in rebellion against his wishes; if he is a father, let me note his commands, and let me reverentially obey; if he has said “Do this,” let me do it, not because I dread him, but because I love him; and if he forbids me to do anything, let me avoid it. There are some persons in the world who do not have the spirit of adoption, and they can never be brought to do a thing unless they see some advantage to themselves in it; but with the child of God, there is no motive at all; he can boldly say, “I have never done a right thing since I have followed Christ because I hoped to get to heaven by it, nor have I ever avoided a wrong thing because I was afraid of being damned.” For the child of God knows his good works do not make him acceptable to God, for he was acceptable to God by Jesus Christ long before he had any good works; and the fear of hell does not affect him, for he knows that he is delivered from that, and shall never come into condemnation, having passed from death unto life. He acts from pure love and gratitude, and until we come to that state of mind, I do not think there is such a thing as virtue; for if a man has done what is called a virtuous action because he hoped to get to heaven or to avoid hell by it, whom has he served? Has he not served himself? and what is that but selfishness? But the man who has no hell to fear and no heaven to gain, because heaven is his own and hell he can never enter, that man is capable of virtue; for he says— “Now for the love I bear his name, What was my gain I count my loss; I pour contempt on all my shame, And nail my glory to his cross”— to his cross who loved, and lived, and died for me who loved him not, but who desires now to love him with all my heart, and soul, and strength.
Has God thus been revealed to you, my reader? Have you seen Him in Jesus? Have you recognized His parental relation? Are you conscious that He is at peace with you through the atonement of His Son? Have you clasped Him in your filial affections, exclaiming, in the deep tenderness of filial love, “You are my Father, God!” Give your soul no rest until it rests in this truth, so divinely revealed by the Holy Spirit. “The Spirit himself bears witness with our spirit that we are the children of God.” What a gentle rebuke of all our crude thoughts, dim conceptions, low views, and rebellious feelings concerning God! What injustice have we done Him! What ingratitude have we shown Him! How have we misunderstood His character, misinterpreted His dealings, distrusted His wisdom, and misread His heart! Is the Father all that Christ is? Henceforth I will no more distrust Him, misinterpret Him, or entertain one hard thought of His conduct, or one unkind suspicion of His love.
Cultivate a filial approach to God in prayer. Do not, yielding to a false idea, deem it humility to doubt your sonship. The profoundest lowliness is to acknowledge, and the deepest holiness is to experience the Fatherhood of God. Draw near to God as your Father, and commune with Him as His child. You may then open wide your mouth in prayer, supplication, and confession. You complain of smallness, lifelessness, and reluctance in devotion. You cannot trace the glow of love, the strength of desire, the sweetness of communion, in your approaches to the throne of grace of which others speak. May not the cause be found in the imperfect realization of your adoption, in the faint conception you have of the Parental relation of God to you, in the little filial affection and confidence which marks your approach to the throne of grace?
The filial spirit which breathes through the prayer taught His disciples by our Lord is not less exhibited in times of trial, than in seasons of communion. Times of parental correction are often times of blessed realization of our adoption. The rod is sent, among other holy purposes, especially for this. It awakens the slumbering affections of the soul. Then the chastened child cries out to God. The spirit of prayer, so long stagnant, is stirred up. The heart so cold and torpid is set upon seeking the Lord. The chastening is seen as belonging to a child and as coming from a Father. May this be the hallowed and happy issue of your present trial! Look at it as parental. Your Father’s heart prepared, and His hand presents the bitter cup. His wisdom, love, and righteousness ordained and arranged the whole. Even more than this. What is the heart of God towards you as His chastened and sorrowing child? The words of inspiration alone can supply the answer. “Like as a Father pities his children, so the Lord pities those who fear Him. For He knows our frame; He remembers that we are dust.” Tender relation! Touching image! A father’s pity! This is our God. This is your Father. He has corrected you, but not in anger. He has brought you low, but He has not given you over unto death. He has removed some blessings, but He has not taken all. He has blown upon some flowers of your heart, but others—perhaps lovelier and more precious—still live and bloom to delight you with their beauty, and to gladden you with their fragrance. The pleasant gourd which covered and refreshed you is withered and gone; but He who made it to grow, and then removed it, spreads over you the undying foliage of His love; and the sun shall not smite you by day, nor the moon by night, for “upon all your glory there shall be a defense.”
“Father!” It is the language of the believing heart. As the adoption of His people is the highest act of God’s grace, so the filial response of His children to that adoption is the highest act of our faith. Could faith on its strongest pinion soar higher than the Fatherhood of God? Oh, it is a marvelous fact, a stupendous truth, that God should be our Father! Higher than this the soul cannot rise. Love then reaches its deepest yearnings. Only realize this fact, that God is your Father, and it explains every chapter of your history, every event of your life, every sentiment, feeling, and desire of your soul. All that is omnipotent in strength, all that is profound in wisdom, all that is tender in sympathy, all that is rich in infinite plenitude, is bound up in the endearing epithet–“Father.” That Father is yours! You were His child from eternity! Stupendous thought! His love to you, His choice of you, His purpose to adopt, His plan to redeem, sanctify, and bring you to glory, were concurrent with His being! They are eternal acts of His grace.
Grace Reformed Baptist Church, Bangalore 