Friday, July 1, 2005
Matthew 6:9a "In this manner, therefore, pray: Our Father in heaven."
OUR FATHER IN HEAVEN
God wanted Jesus, His Son, to have many brothers and sisters. He wanted many people besides Jesus to be able to call God their Father. So it is not One person alone, Jesus, who says "Father" to God. But it is Jesus telling all of His disciples to call God their Father. We think of the risen Jesus on Easter morning, saying to Mary Magdalene: "Go to My brethren and say to them, 'I am ascending to My Father and your Father, and to My God and your God.'"
Is it not amazing that we sinful human beings are in the same family with Jesus? Is it not amazing that we can call the same God our Father that Jesus called His Father? It is a miracle of God's grace that this is possible. For we imperfect human beings are surely not worthy to be put on the same level as Jesus.
How did this miracle take place? The apostle Paul opens up this mystery to us in his letter to the Romans, chapter eight. There we read: "And we know that all things work together for good to those who love God, to those who are the called according to His purpose. For whom He foreknew, He also predestined to be conformed to the image of His Son, that He might be the firstborn among many brethren. Moreover whom He predestined, these He also called."
Who are these very special persons who love God? Do they somehow distinguish themselves as being less sinful than others? Are they somehow wired differently from others so that love of God comes naturally to them?
No, not at all. You see, these persons who love God have first of all been on the receiving end of God's love. Those who love God have been called by God according to His purpose. The word "called" here has a special significance. It refers to those sinners who have been brought to faith in Jesus Christ through the words of the Gospel. The words of the Gospel are that God so loved this sinful world of ours that He sent His Son to suffer and die for the sins of all in order to rescue them from the hell they deserve. Yes, in order to rescue us from the hell we deserve. God wants every person everywhere to hear this Gospel, this Good News, and to trust in Jesus as Savior.
Those persons who have thus been brought to faith in Jesus are the called, and God works all things together for their good. Every activity anywhere in the world has to serve the purpose of bringing these called ones to their eternal destiny in heaven.
Here Paul tells us that God foreknew these persons from eternity. God chose them in love to be His before the world was made. The reason He did this, we are told, is so that Jesus, His Son, would have a family of brothers and sisters. God loved these persons from eternity and so He "predestined them to be conformed to the image of His Son, that He might be the firstborn among many brethren." Jesus is the holy Son of God, and there is none like Him. Yet there are others in the family of God who are conformed to His image, and these are the recipients of God's love. In fact, they have been recipients of God's love from eternity. They would never have loved God if God had not loved them first. They would never have decided to believe in Jesus if God had not first decided in His love to choose them to become the brothers and sisters of His Son.
