The HEAVENLY FATHER – by Paul M Hanssen
The word “father” has many meanings for many people. For some, a father speaks of comfort and care, but for others a father speaks of dread and fear. For some, it speaks of strength and heroism, yet for others it speaks of weakness and cowardliness. The mention of a father speaks of an example for some, while others see nothing but hypocrisy. Our childhood experiences formed and fashioned our impressions as to how we view a father figure. For years to come, and maybe for the rest of our lives, we maintain the impressions that were formed within us as children.
When we come to know Jesus as our Savior, His purpose is to lead us to the Heavenly Father. Jesus is the bridge, the door, and the way that leads fallen man back into fellowship with the Father of all life. Whether we like to admit it or not, most people will view the relationship with God the Father through the lens of past experiences with their natural, earthly, father. As already mentioned, for many, this is not a positive viewpoint. In our warped viewpoint, the Heavenly Father can take on the image of a harsh, uncaring, dominant, judging, forceful and even brutal entity within our thinking. Yet, nothing could be further from the Truth.
· The Father is aware of your every need
Be not ye therefore like unto them: for your Father knoweth what things ye have need of, before ye ask him. (Matthew 6:8)
· The Father longs to provide for your needs
Behold the fowls of the air: for they sow not, neither do they reap, nor gather into barns; yet your heavenly Father feedeth them. Are ye not much better than they? (Matthew 6:26)
· The Father gives good things
If ye then, being evil, know how to give good gifts unto your children, how much more shall your Father which is in heaven give good things to them that ask him? (Matthew 7:11)
· The Father’s will is to redeem
Even so it is not the will of your Father which is in heaven, that one of these little ones should perish. (Matthew 18:14)
· The Father has and shares great compassion
And he arose, and came to his father. But when he was yet a great way off, his father saw him, and had compassion, and ran, and fell on his neck, and kissed him. (Luke 15:20)
· The Father desires to call His children sons and daughters
And will be a Father unto you, and ye shall be my sons and daughters, saith the Lord Almighty. (2 Corinthians 6:18)
· The Father bestows great love
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)
· He is a Father to the fatherless
A father of the fatherless, and a judge of the widows, is God in his holy habitation. (Psalm 68:5)
This list of the loving, caring, giving, and graceful nature of the Heavenly Father could be considerably longer than what has been enumerated in this article. No love has ever been expressed that is greater than the Father’s love. Finding the heartbeat of the Heavenly Father is to find the ultimate of existence. Nothing compares to the love that is expressed from His beating heart. No place is so restful, calm, and soothing as the haven of His bosom. The heartbeat of God expresses the very rhythm of life itself. Hence, nothing exists without the love of the Father. There is no spiritual experience that supersedes hearing the rhythm of the Father’s heartbeat. Every beat of His heart pulsates with His eternal love for His creation. The Father’s heart, His eternal bosom, is the origin and the cradle of all existence. To know the heartbeat and the love of the Heavenly Father is to come to the place of purpose and destiny where the origin and the end meet.
John 16:27-28
For the Father himself loveth you, because ye have loved me, and have believed that I came out from God. I came forth from the Father, and am come into the world: again, I leave the world, and go to the Father.
Jesus is the manifest expression of the Father’s love. He came from the Father and He returns to the Father. This is the Father’s purpose for all of those who love Him. It is by knowing His love that we will find the ultimate end and destiny and return to the heart, the bosom, and the origin of all life.