During our Grace experience service, we were able to establish that God is our father and we can boldly personalise God as our father. What that means is that we are going beyond a relationship with God, it is more definite and we are looking at it intentionally coming to a place of understanding that he is not just our God, but also our father. And Jesus also helped us see clearly in John 20:17 that he is going to his father and our father, his God and our God. It will not amount to tautology for Jesus to say that.
It’s a clear understanding that there is a place of God over our life. There is a place of relationship as God being our father. Everyone has known something about God but practically speaking, not everyone has come into that relationship or an understanding seeing God as our father.
We also saw from scripture that God is our father and we trace how Jesus introduced the concept of fatherhood to us. He started from talking about our father and from that point, Jesus did not use the phrase “Our father” he kept on saying “My father” until after he rose from the grave and he wanted to ascend to the father and for once Jesus made that clear bold statement in
John 20:17 NKJV “Jesus said to her, “Do not cling to Me, for I have not yet ascended to My Father; but go to My brethren and say to them, ‘I am ascending to My Father and your Father, and to My God and your God.’ ”
The context of Matthew 6: 5-9 was an issue of prayer, an issue of a relationship that should exist that will promote a kind of confidence, intimacy, that will make us have the assurance that we are talking to our father.
What Jesus was trying to say is that we should not pray like the hypocrite prays with so much repetition. They repeat as if who they are talking to is deaf or not hearing them or they have to appease him to hear or plead over and over, compelling him to do their biddings.
Jesus was trying to explain in that scripture that we should approach God as a father. One of the things this realization will do to us is that we can go to the place of prayer with so much assurance that God hears and that we are talking to our father and our father is not deaf.
Jesus further explains that even before we start praying and asking, our father knows what we have need of before we start asking and that is the beauty of it all.
The people who come with vain repetition might have the mindset that they need to keep repeating.
It is our relationship with the father that makes him know our needs. It is not about us asking, it is about our relationship with our father. Our father knew us before he knew our needs. If he does not know us then he doesn’t know our needs.
We have a father that knows us and that is the only ground he is able to know our needs. He knows us by name, he knows what we are going through, he sees, he knows. That is the father’s heart.
The father’s heart is that he has an understanding. Not just our needs, he knows us. It is because he knows us that is why he knows our needs. He knows our needs because he knows us.
That is the fundamental truth we need to understand that the father knows us. He has a clear understanding about us. He knows our struggles. He knows our desires. He knows everything about us. Nothing about us is hidden away from him.
Most of us need to understand this so that we won’t approach God in the place of prayer thinking God is a foreign being to us or he is not familiar with our issues/life. We must have this understanding in a clear way that God knows us. And the fact that he knows us gives us a clear understanding that he knows our needs.
We are safe in our father’s hand. The best place to be is in the father’s hand. We should have that assurance that in his grip we are safe and preserved.
He knows what we can take, how far we can cope. The scripture said God will not allow us to go through more than the things we can bear.
It is because God knows that we have the capacity to bear certain things that is why he allows some things to come to us. Some of the things we have gone through some people can’t go through half of it, they will get crushed so he shielded them away from such.
Understanding this is important because if God knows us then that is the reason why he knows our needs, struggles, strengths, weaknesses, frailties and limitations. He knows how much pressure we can withstand. God also hears, feels, listens. God has the senses that we have.
Hebrews 4:15 NKJV “For we do not have a High Priest who cannot sympathize with our weaknesses, but was in all points tempted as we are, yet without sin.”
What impacts or affects us, impacts and affects him. Until we come to understand it this way, our approach to prayer will not change. So we don’t need to shout for God to hear. Matthew 6:5. We can have conversation with God under our breath.
Our thoughts are as powerful as our shouting. ” Now to Him who is able to do exceedingly abundantly above all that we ask or think, according to the power that works in us”
Ephesians 3:20 NKJV
Even before we think or frame our thoughts or put our thoughts together, he can capture our thoughts because he knows us.
If earthly parents with limitations have come to study babies and have a clear understanding of what their tears are meant for and they are able to provide solutions according to their knowledge, how much more God. He says he knows our needs.
God knows us to the extent that he knows the number of hairs on our head. He said they are numbered. So each strand has a number and God knows them by their numbers.
God is infinite, we can not know him fully. His wisdom is beyond searching. The little we can know about God is who our father is.
It is painful that some of us don’t know our father and sometimes some people go through life difficulties they should not. We should have a clear understanding of who God is and we should be able to relate to him as our father.
There is a heart of a father. There is a knowing. There is no gambling about it. He is not assuming. God’s heart goes after us. He feels our pain. Jesus said, “We don’t have a high priest who is not touched with the feelings of our infirmity.” God is touched. When you cry over a situation it touches the heart of God. God has emotions just that tears don’t move him, he is moved by faith.
God wants us to approach him with confidence and not from a place of fear. He wants us to place a demand on his power and ability.
God hears us based on the sacrifice of his son. The father is glorified when you mention the name of Jesus. It shows that you agree with the potency of what the father carried out through the death, burial and resurrection of his son and that gives him glory.
It’s good to have a structure of prayer, but prayer should be more than that. It should be a relationship walk.
God knows our needs, so our father is a provider of needs. God is our source. He knows our desires, needs and wants. Some people have a culture of begging God. The fact that some things don’t come immediately you pray, does not mean that God is not interested in blessing you, it might not be suitable for you at that particular time. It is important to seek to know the mind and will of God.
Seek to be in the center of his will. The safest place to be is in the will of God. God is rich in resources. God is aware. He knows our needs before we ask. He cares for our wellbeing.
The story of the prodigal son shows us that God is our provider.
We should have an understanding that
GOD IS OUR FATHER AND PROVIDER. He meets every need.
He would not deny us. If our earthly fathers will not deny us of good gifts how much more our heavenly father.
The Characteristics of God’s fathers heart.
Behold, what manner of love the Father hath bestowed upon us, that we should be called the sons of God: therefore the world knoweth us not, because it knew him not.
1 John 3:1 KJV
LOVE is one the characteristics of God
1John 3:1.
Like as a father pitieth his children, so the Lord pitieth them that fear him.
Psalm 103:13
COMPASSION is the nature of the father.
Be not ye therefore like unto them: for your Father knoweth what things ye have need of, before ye ask him.
Mathew 6:8-9
He has the heart of a PROVIDER.
If God has given us the best which is his son, the rest will not be an issue.
The greatest gift God offered man is the unspeakable gift. Nothing can match the value of Jesus.
Luke 15:11-32
In the narrative, the son came back home with stories of how unworthy he is to be a son, that he would rather apply for servanthood. The father because of his act of love and compassion he gives, and forgives. The father didn’t see the errors of the boy as something he can’t forgive. While the elder brother was speaking, the mind of the father still didn’t change.
Father DISCIPLINES
Hebrews 12 :5-11
He doesn’t discipline to destroy us. He does that to elicit the correct response from us.
This was the kind of experience David had when he said, in God’s wrath he remembers mercy.
1 Chronicles 21:13
David knew the heart of God well. He knew God wanted to correct him to get fruit., to get a result.
No matter how bad a situation is, God wants to bring out redemption, edification and a changed soul. Our Father has a heart for his children.
He disciplines us out of love.
We should run to God and not away from him no matter how bad you think the situation is.
God’s spirit can’t lead you away from him. His arms are always open waiting to receive us.