Tuesday, September 27, 2005
Matthew 23:9 "Do not call anyone on earth your father; for One is your Father, He who is in heaven."
I BELIEVE IN GOD THE FATHER
The LORD, Jehovah, has revealed Himself to us in three separate persons - Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. The first person of the Godhead is described as our "Father." As we look think of the work of God the Father, we realize why such a description is so fitting.
God has created us: "Have we not all one Father? Has not one God created us?" (Malachi 2:10). God provides for all our needs: "Therefore I say to you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or what you will drink; nor about your body, what you will put on. Is not life more than food and the body more than clothing? Look at the birds of the air, for they neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns; yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not of more value than they?"
(Matthew 6:25-26).
God wants us to bring our requests to him: "If you then, being evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father who is in heaven give good things to those who ask Him" (Matthew 7:11).
And most important of all: God has provided a solution to the problem of our sin through a Savior: "Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who according to His abundant mercy has begotten us again to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead" (1 Peter 1:3).
While we all have earthly fathers, Jesus here reminds us that God is our Father in a much greater sense. It was God who gave each of us life through our earthly parents; He has continued to provide for us throughout our lives; He has told us to come to Him in prayer with all our requests, and He has caused us to be spiritually reborn so that we might have eternal life in heaven. We can have no greater Father! Thanks be to God our Father, to whom be the glory, forever and ever!
