Morning By Morning #26

Your heavenly Father…

Matthew 6:26

From the pen of Charles Spurgeon:

God’s people are doubly His children—they are His offspring through creation and they are His children through their adoption in Christ. Therefore, they are privileged to address Him by saying, “Our Father which art in heaven” (Matt. 6:9 KJV). Father. What a precious word!

The very word speaks authority. Yet, “If I am your Father, where is my honor? If you are my children, where is your obedience?” The term Father mingles affection with authority, an authority that does not evoke rebellion, but an authority demanding obedience that is cheerfully given and would not be withheld even when it could be. The obedience God’s children render to Him must be a loving obedience.

Don’t approach serving the Lord as a slave simply doing your taskmaster’s work, but follow the path of His commands because it is your Father’s path. “Offer the parts of your body to him as instruments of righteousness” (Rom. 6:13) because righteousness is your Father’s will, and His will should also be the will of His child.

Father! The word denotes a kingly attribute. Yet it is so sweetly veiled in love that the King’s crown is forgotten when viewing His face, and His scepter is not a rod of iron but a silver scepter of mercy. In fact, His scepter seems to be forgotten altogether in the tender hand of Him who wields it.

Father! In this term we find honor and love. How great is a father’s love for his children! The word friendship will not do, nor will the term kindness come close to expressing what a father’s heart and hands will do for his child. They are his offspring—he must bless them; they are his children—he must exhibit his strength in their defense. If an earthly father watches over his children with unceasing love and care, how much more does our heavenly Father display?

“Abba, Father” (Rom. 8:15)! Whoever can utter these words has expressed sweeter music than all the cherubim and seraphim could ever sing. Heaven is found in the depth of that word—Father! In that word is all I could ever ask, all my needs could ever demand, and all my heart could ever desire.

I have all of everything, throughout all of eternity, when I can say, “Father.”

From the pen of Jim Reimann:

Unfortunately, too many people today have never experienced an earthly father or a heavenly one. We live in a time when a large percentage of babies are born to single women, a time that greatly undervalues the importance of having a father in the home. Yet relating to an earthly father is one of the primary ways we learn to relate to our heavenly Father.

Dear believer, whether or not you have the blessing of a close relationship with an earthly father—or no earthly father at all—there is a heavenly Father who is capable of being your “all in all” (1 Cor. 15:28), capable of meeting your every need. And this “Father knows what you need before you ask him” (Matt. 6:8).

Heavenly Father, I thank You for who You are and that You desire to have an intimate relationship with me. Deepen my desire to know You better, I pray.

“We pray this in order that you may live a life worthy of the Lord…growing in the knowledge of God” (Col. 1:10).