For the purpose of this post, we would need to look into what the role of a father is. A father protects. A father cares. A father provides. A father guides. A father supports. A father does all to enable the success of his child because the success of that child is also his success. These are just some of the roles fathers play.
When we look through scriptures, we discover that for several hundreds of years, the people of God had been made to know God as healer (Isa. 53:4-5; Jer. 30:17), fighter (Deut. 20:4), defender (2 Sam. 22:3), savior (Isaiah 43:11), Lord (Lev. 18:2) and so many other amazing names. But when Jesus Christ came to earth, He revealed God to us in a different way. He revealed Him as God the Father (Matt. 23:9; Matt. 11:27). When we see God as The Father, Our Father, we see Him playing all these roles and even much more, in our lives. God the Father is an all-encompassing name for God Almighty. And Jesus wanted us to experience this.
“Which of you, if your son asks for bread, will give him a stone? Or if he asks for a fish, will give him a snake? 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!”
Matthew 7:9-11 NIV
Remember His words to the women who tried to touch Him after His resurrection. He said He had not gone up yet to meet His Father and Our Father (John 20:17). The death and resurrection of Jesus Christ not only brought us salvation, but it also reconciled us to God, allowing us to call God “father”.
We receive the right to become sons of God when we believe in Jesus (John 1:12). It is the Holy Spirit through Christ Jesus that gives us this right and He only works with believers (Rom. 8:15). If you believe in Jesus Christ as Savior, you become a member of the family. The Holy Spirit then gives us the right to call Him “Abba, Father”. The use of the word “Abba” is intentional in the sense that the word depicts an intimate way of calling one’s Father. Like using a word like “pops”, which indicates the level of closeness between the child and the father. And what better privilege can there be than to be able to call the Creator of the entire universe, the One in whom all things are formed, your Father? It even gets better. John 17:23 AMP says that He doesn’t even love Jesus Christ more than you. So, who then could he love more than you?
However, you must note that this is still a right. Therefore, if you do not exercise it, you could subject yourself to the schemes of the enemy. God said that His people perish for lack of knowledge (Hosea 4:6). Children of God would only suffer like children of the world when they are ignorant that God is now their Father. You have the right to be a child of God, exercise it.
The story of the prodigal son depicts God’s fatherly nature towards us (Luke 15:11-32). A servant who has behaved in such a manner may have been sent away, never to be re-employed. But we are God’s children. Even when we become prodigal or walk away from Him, He eagerly awaits our return, ready to receive us and even throw a feast upon our arrival. It is the sonship we have through Christ Jesus that gives us the right to come boldly to the throne of grace to obtain mercy (Heb. 4:16). Though we remain servants of God because of our service to Him, we can boast of His overflowing mercy for us because we are His children. This is one key thing that puts us above the angels. We are made in God’s image; we are joint heirs with Christ.
Now that God is our Father, we have free access to Him. A servant in a household is unable to walk up to his master’s bedroom boldly. There is a form of “timidity” that he needs to have. But a child of that household would open the bedroom door as if it were his. Not to be rude to his parents, but because of the access he has (Rom. 8:17). The same is our relationship with God the Father. We are given free access to Him by which we can approach Him boldly. Not because we earned it though, but because of Jesus Christ who initiated our adoption by His sacrifice.
However, for you to experience God as Father, you must first be in Christ. This is because it is only Jesus Christ who can reveal God to us and we are adopted by the Holy Spirit into the family of Christ, only when we have believed. (Matt. 11:27; Rom. 8:15)
“See what kind of love the Father has given to us, that we should be called children of God; and so, we are. The reason why the world does not know us is that it did not know him.”
1 John 3:1 ESV
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