"It's my Daddy"
If a total stranger tapped one of my children on the shoulder, pointed to me, and asked?“Who is that?”
And if they replied;
“He is taller and much stronger than me!”
“He drives a motor car”
He has brown hair and blue eyes”
“He brings home the groceries”
“He preaches to people and teaches the Bible”
“He punishes me when I do wrong”
“He keeps telling me what to do and not do”
Would you agree that ‘something would be wrong with this picture?
One would expect the reply to be…..”Oh….that is my Daddy!”
If any of my children relates to me, purely on the basis of my attributes, my external qualities and my behaviour, and not ostensibly on the basis of our fundamental relationship there clearly exists a serious dysfunction and a profound misunderstanding.
Their undisputable identity is that of a child of their father, and mine as that of father to my children.The tap root of our mutuality is never our individual attributes or reciprocal need satisfaction or performance, but is purely relationship based! The essence of which is love! This sacred affinity within a father child relationship is a divine institution.
The very manner in which my children ‘see’ and ‘know” me as their earthly father, defines not only how they will relate to me, but it indeed inwardly defines how they in fact ‘see’ themselves and ‘know’ themselves to be!
Yet, if you asked most people, including most average Christians, “Who is God?”
What would the typical and immediate response be?
I suspect that most people would start describing God according to His external attributes.
In fact, the more religious and informed they are in the ‘things of God’, the more opinionated and passionate their objective descriptions of His perceived qualities are likely to be:
“He is the Almighty, the Creator of heaven and earth!”
“He hates sin”
“He punishes the wicked”
“He sends sinners to hell”
“He knows everything, even if you sin secretly, and keeps record of your wrongdoings”
‘He is a consuming fire!”
“God is in Heaven, and will let you in if you were a good person!”
“God is sick and tired of mankind’s nonsense and will end it all soon!”
The manner in which we personally perceive and explain God is critical to our self-concept. It is fundamental to our very experience of life and our individual sense of personal value and the meaning of life.
In precisely the same manner the mode whereby my children ‘see’ and ‘know” me as their earthly father will drastically affects them, likewise our understanding of our Heavenly Father moulds and dictates our very image of ourselves. Defining not only our attitude in relating to God, but also of relating to ourselves. In fact defining who we are, and how we live our lives.
'Bring him my cloak, sandals for his feet and a ring for his finger'
The Bible makes it clear that before Jesus Christ came down from Heaven, from the very ‘bosom of the Father’, from the inner sanctuary of the Trinity, nobody in human history ever actually knew or understood God!
The Eternal Invisible God occasionally spoke through His ordained prophets, only revealing fragmentary aspects of His nature, His purposes and His promises.
'The return of the prodigal son' by Rembrandt
Yet, mankind, and in particular the nation of Israel, and the very religious system through which God had been working to express His purposes, did not know God at all.
Jesus Christ introduced God as a Loving Father!
He also revealed Himself as the Son of the Father.
He explained God, not by adding to man’s list of objective observations and religious assumptions of God’s external attributes and powers. Neither by objectively listing more of His Omni attributes.
On the contrary, Jesus introduced God as essentially a ‘relational’ God! A caring Father.
Not an angry Judge, nor a distant, impersonal and indifferent or even an offended God, as He was been being perceived and related to, as a product of man’s darkened mind.
Jesus revealed that there was no indeed separation between God the Father, and His children.
The Father intimately knew, and loved each of His children. He actually even knew the very number of hair on each of their heads. He knew what they needed before they even asked him.
Through both His teachings and actions, Jesus demonstrated that God was an extremely compassionate Father, one who unconditionally embraced even His most wayward and disappointing children.
The most compelling and accurate description of the Father heart of God, Jesus illustrated with the following word pictures; “ When his son was still a far way off, the Father ran towards him, fell upon him, and embraced him!The same concerned Father later stands pleading with his indignant older son, outside in the darkness, inviting him please join their family festivity.
To Jesus, His Father was not a stern, distant, indifferent, critical, disciplinarian! Not you typical Victorian Irish Catholic father, but rather an accessible and involved Dad. He was Abba, the Aramaic word, a young child used to call their Daddy.
'Abba's Child'
God was his Abba Father. And Jesus was Abba’s child!
Jesus went to the very heart of the matter when He revealed, as a fundamental spiritual reality, the essential relational nature of our Father.
He came, not only to introduce the Father to us, but indeed to introduce us to ourselves!
Jesus came not as an example ‘for’ us to try and imitate. Rather, He came to be an example ‘of’ us!
Indeed, that we too, you and I, and each one of us, like Jesus Himself, are indeed by our very existence…… Abba’s child!
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