Keith Hernandez is one of baseball’s top players. He is a lifetime .300 hitter who has won numerous Golden Glove awards for excellence in fielding. He’s won a batting championship for having the highest average, and also the Most Valuable Player award in his league. He’s even won the World Series. Yet with all his accomplishments, he has missed out on something crucially important to him – his father’s acceptance and recognition — knowing that what he has accomplished has value in the eyes of his father.

In a very candid interview about his relationship with his father, Keith stated that he asked his father, “Dad, I have a lifetime .300 batting average. What more do you want?” His father replied, “But someday you’re going to look back and say, ‘I could have done more.’”

When you hear God referred to as “Father,” what adjectives come to mind? For many, the list may look something like this:

• Demanding
• Unreliable
• Strict
• Emotionally distant
• Uncaring

Of course, not everyone has had bad experiences with their father. But those who do often transfer those negative mental pictures to God. Really though, isn’t this looking at things entirely backwards?

Say for example, your father’s job caused him to spend a lot of time traveling so you rarely saw him when you were growing up. This experience might sway you to associate the word “distant” with the word “father.” It might be natural then, when God is referred to as “Father,” to think of God as also being “distant” and not there for you when you need him.

But that seems backwards, since God is the standard of what a father should be, not vice versa. God is the mold, the pure definition of “father.” Our own fathers (as wonderful or as miserable as they may be) are like the clay made from the mold, which imperfectly represent the original. Our own fathers cannot tell us much about our Father in Heaven, any more than imperfect copies of a great work of art can tell us much about the greatness of the original masterpiece.

Don’t let your relationship with your earthly father hinder the one you can have with your Lord. Your earthly father may have been wonderful, terrible, somewhere in between, or absent entirely. Regardless, he is not the measure of God. God is the measure of men and women.

If you didn’t have a caring, loving father who was always there when you needed him, you can find comfort in knowing your Heavenly Father is, was, and will be all of those things. He will always be there to cherish you and, even though he may discipline you, he will never stop loving you. You do not have to prove anything to him or live up to any unrealistic, lofty standards.

This “Father in Heaven” we know as God, fathers us in the ways that our earthly father could not or would not father us. God loves you enough to accept you as you are, but loves you even more in that he doesn’t want to leave you that way. Like a perfect Father, he is there to guide, correct, teach, and be an example so you can develop into your true potential. That is why he sent his Holy Spirit as a counselor to live in you. Unlike a father who may not have been there, acknowledged your worth, or given you the attention you needed, God is always just a prayer away.

Here’s a Father’s Love Letter to you from God Almighty, artfully comprised from various verses in the Bible:

You may not know me, but I know everything about you (Psalm 139:1).
I know when you sit down and when you rise up (Psalm 139:2).
I am familiar with all your ways (Psalm 139:3).
Even the very hairs on your head are numbered (Matthew 10:29-31).
For you were made in my image (Genesis 1:27).
In me you live and move and have your being for you are my offspring (Acts 17:28).
I knew you even before you were conceived (Jeremiah 1:4-5).
I chose you when I planned creation (Ephesians 1:11-12).
You were not a mistake, for all your days are written in my book (Psalm 139:15-16).
I determined the exact time of your birth and where you would live (Acts 17:26).
You are fearfully and wonderfully made (Psalm 139:14).
I knit you together in your mother’s womb (Psalm 139:13).
And brought you forth on the day you were born (Psalm 71:6).
I have been misrepresented by those who don’t know me (John 8:41-44).
I am not distant and angry, but am the complete expression of love (1 John 4:16).
And it is my desire to lavish my love on you simply because you are my child and I am your Father. (1 John 3:1).
I offer you more than your earthly father ever could (Matthew 7:11).
For I am the perfect father (Matthew 5:48).
Every good gift that you receive comes from my hand (James 1:17).
For I am your provider and I meet all your needs (Matthew 6:31-33).
My plan for your future has always been filled with hope (Jeremiah 29:11).
Because I love you with an everlasting love (Jeremiah 31:3).
My thoughts toward you are countless as the sand on the seashore (Psalm 139:17-18).
And I rejoice over you with singing (Zephaniah 3:17).
I will never stop doing good to you (Jeremiah 32:40).
For you are my treasured possession (Exodus 19:5).
I desire to establish you with all my heart and all my soul (Jeremiah 32:41).
And I want to show you great and marvelous things (Jeremiah 33:3).
If you seek me with all your heart, you will find me (Deuteronomy 4:29).
Delight in me and I will give you the desires of your heart (Psalm 37:4).
For it is I who gave you those desires (Philippians 2:13).
I am able to do more for you than you could possibly imagine (Ephesians 3:20).
For I am your greatest encourager (2 Thessalonians 2:16-17).
I am also the Father who comforts you in all your troubles (2 Corinthians 1:3-4).
When you are brokenhearted, I am close to you (Psalm 34:18).
As a shepherd carries a lamb, I have carried you close to my heart (Isaiah 40:11).
One day I will wipe away every tear from your eyes (Revelation 21:3-4).
And I’ll take away all the pain you have suffered on this earth (also Revelation 21:3-4).
I am your Father, and I love you even as I love my son, Jesus (John 17:23).
For in Jesus, my love for you is revealed (John 17:26).
He is the exact representation of my being (Hebrews 1:3).
He came to demonstrate that I am for you, not against you (Romans 8:31).
And to tell you that I am not counting your sins (2 Corinthians 5:18-19).
Jesus died so that you and I could be reconciled (also 2 Corinthians 5:18-19).
His death was the ultimate expression of my love for you (1 John 4:10).
I gave up everything I loved that I might gain your love (Romans 8:31-32).
If you receive the gift of my son Jesus, you receive me (1 John 2:23).
And nothing will ever separate you from my love again (Romans 8:38-39).
Come home and I’ll throw the biggest party heaven has ever seen (Luke 15:7).
I have always been Father, and will always be Father (Ephesians 3:14-15).
My question is: Will you be my child? (John 1:12-13).
I am waiting for you (Luke 15:11-32).

Choose the statements most meaningful to you and write them down. Keep them handy to read and pray over when you believe you need a reminder of your Heavenly Father’s love for you, especially when another person, be it your father or someone else, hurts your feelings, minimizes your worth, or ignores you.

However, there is a trap to avoid. Just as it is wrong to compare God to the actions and attitudes of an earthly father, it is equally incorrect to do the reverse. The more you embrace the loving fatherhood of God you have so desperately craved, there may be the tendency to magnify your earthly father’s shortcomings. Please, don’t fall into that temptation. No one can measure up to God — not you, not me, and not our fathers. None of us are perfect. We have all fallen short (Romans 3:23).

Ask God to open your heart to see your father through his eyes. Slowly, the pain of the past will begin to dissipate. The wounds so deeply imbedded will begin to heal. Given time, your heart will accept the concept of forgiving your earthly father, just as God has forgiven you for your faults and sins. It takes time, but it can happen.

I personally know it for a fact. Because God is such a loving, caring, and perfect Father to me, I can now view my earthly father as another human being struggling with his worth and purpose, with talents and flaws, achievements and failures, who is loved by his Creator ― just like me.

by Darren Hewer
used by permission

The “Father’s Love Letter” is Copyright © Father Heart Communications. Also available in 89 other languages. Keith Hernandez story is courtesy Gary Smalley & John Trent, Ph.D., The Gift of Honor, p. 116.

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The post Why “Father” God? appeared first on Thoughts About God.

Read: Matthew 6:9-13

When Christ taught His disciples to pray, He told them to call God “Our Father” when communicating with Him. Jesus often addressed God as “My Father,” but now they, too, shared in that privileged family relationship. All of us who’ve been born again are part of the household of God and have this same right.

Consider some of the ways our heavenly Father cares for His children. He …

Loves. God’s love is unconditional, since it’s based on His nature rather than our performance
(1 John 4:16).

Listens. When we pray, He gives us His full attention (Psalm 55:16-17).

Provides. The Father assumes responsibility for meeting all our needs (Philippians 4:19).

Guides. He is the one who directs our path when we trust in Him (Proverbs. 3:5-6).

Protects. The Lord shields us spiritually, emotionally, and physically, sifting every experience through His sovereign fingers (Psalm 121).

Stays. He’s not an absentee parent, since He will never leave or forsake us (Deuteronomy 31:8).

Disciplines. The Lord disciplines us for our good, so that we may share in His holiness
(Hebrews 12:5-11).

Though experiences with our earthly dads may have distorted our perspective of the heavenly Father, we can learn to see Him as He truly is. By viewing Him through the truth of Scripture instead of our preconceptions, we will see evidence of His loving care and discover a security we’ve never known before.

ByDr. Charles Stanley
Used by Permission

https://www.intouch.org/

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The post Our Heavenly Father appeared first on Thoughts About God.

This resurrection life you received from God is not a timid, grave-tending life. It’s adventurously expectant, greeting God with a childlike “What’s next, Papa?” Romans 8:15 (The Message)

It was the early 1990’s. A room full of teachers sat at long wooden tables in a dimly lit, stuffy room. Magazines lay in disorderly piles on the tables along with glue, several pair of scissors, and large sheets of blank white paper. The instructions were simple: cut out pictures illustrating your view of the character of God and paste the pictures onto the paper, forming a collage.

After a few moments of silence, the teachers – accustomed, of course, to totalitarian-induced obedience – began the project and within thirty minutes, several large posters were complete.

Although the project organizers suspected what might be the general direction of the participants’ choices, they were amazed at the volatility expressed. No cute baby pictures, no frothy clouds, no pastoral scenes. Instead, the formerly blank sheets had overlapping cut outs of atomic explosions, mutilated bodies, storm-ravaged houses, bloody slaughterhouse scenes.

These were people who had not yet heard of the “tender mercy of our God“. (Luke 1:78), or “the kindnesses of the Lord” (Psalm 63:7). They didn’t know that God longed to be known as a tender, loving “Abba,” or “Papa” as Eugene Peterson translates in the word  The Message.

What pictures would you have cut out of the magazines? In Abba’ Child, Brennan Manning writes that we who are Christians have the same relationship with God as Jesus had. “He invites and calls us to share the same intimate and liberating relationship”.

How magnetic our lives could be if we only reflected to the world God’s radical and tender love.

I sometimes forget that the all-wise, all-knowing God is also my “Papa“, a God who longs for me to develop an intimate relationship. Help me, God, to express my love for you and increasingly feel your love for me.

By Marilyn Ehle
used by permission

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The post Papa appeared first on Thoughts About God.

Be blessed to know your identity as your Father’s beloved son or daughter. “Those who are led by the Spirit of God are sons of God” (Romans 8:14).

Be blessed with fully realizing the life-changing truth of the Spirit living in you, so that you can know you are the beloved of your Father, and He is yours. Be blessed with His exquisite fathering and receive it as His special child. Be blessed to know His Spirit speaking to you that you are a delight to Him.

Jesus grew in wisdom and stature and in favor with God and man. Your Father wants to bless you with growth that is mental, spiritual, emotional, and relational. Receive from your Father the love and acceptance you have been seeking. Your Father’s heart is passionate for your full identity as His child, based purely on relationship, not performance.

Be blessed as He calls you to fully live as the son or daughter you are. You do not have to work for it. You can’t earn that relationship. Be blessed with perfect love that casts out fear that you aren’t enough or you don’t have what it takes.

Be blessed to know without doubt that your Father is extending His favor toward you. This is the time of your Father’s favor, a time to receive His gift to you of security in His house.

Be blessed with knowing this new grace place with your heavenly Father. He wants you to receive it. Be blessed as He calls you to life, nurture, and enlargement. Be blessed with a rich gold mine of identity and legitimacy from which to live confidently and purposefully in God’s design of you and His purposes for you.

Be blessed to be released into the full rights of your true identity and legitimacy in your Father.

By Sylvia Gunter
Used by Permission

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• Be Blessed, Beloved Child – by Sylvia Gunter

• Seven-fold Blessing – by Sylvia Gunter

• Blessing of the Fruit of the Spirit – by Sylvia Gunter

The post Blessing of Identity appeared first on Thoughts About God.

Soak in this portrait of your heavenly Father.

Your Father is perfectly faithful.

Deuteronomy 31:8   “The LORD himself goes before you and will be with you; he will never leave you nor forsake you. Do not be afraid; do not be discouraged.”

Your Father is a generous provider.

Matthew 7:11 If you, then, though you are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father in heaven give good gifts to those who ask him!

Your Father is loving and compassionate.

John 17:23 (Jesus speaking to His Father) “You have loved them even as you have loved me.”

Psalm 103:13 As a father has compassion on his children, so the LORD has compassion on those who fear him.

Your Father is forgiving and accepting.

Psalm 103:12 As far as the east is from the west, so far has he removed our transgressions from us.

Your Father is a patient teacher.

Isaiah 30:20-21  Your eyes will behold your Teacher. Your ears will hear a word behind you, “This is the way, walk in it,” whenever you turn to the right or to the left. (NASB)

Your Father is an understanding counselor.

Isaiah 9:6 He will be called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace.

Your Father is a wise communicator.

James 1:5  If any of you lacks wisdom, you should ask God, who gives generously to all without finding fault, and it will be given to you.

James 3:17 The wisdom that comes from heaven is first of all pure; then peace-loving, considerate, submissive, full of mercy and good fruit, impartial and sincere.

Your Father gives good gifts.

James 1:17  Every good and perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of the heavenly lights, who does not change like shifting shadows.

Your Father is attentive to your needs.

Matthew 6:26 Look at the birds of the air; they do not sow or reap or store away in barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not much more valuable than they?

Your Father is strong yet personal.

Isaiah 40:26 He who brings out the starry host one by one and calls forth each of them by name. Because of his great power and mighty strength, not one of them is missing

Matthew 10:30 And even the very hairs of your head are all numbered.

And so much more. He is more wonderful than our mind can comprehend. He is there, even if we feel that He has left or that He ought to leave, and even when we turn our backs on Him. Our Father is love, pure love, and He does not change.

By Sylvia Gunter
Used by Permission

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“How great is the love the Father has lavished on us, that we should be called children of God! And that is what we are! The reason the world does not know us is that it did not know him.”  1 John 3:1

Thought

Some gifts are too precious for words and too wonderful to fully appreciate. The greatest of these gifts is that we are God’s children! We have been adopted into the Father’s family! Jesus claims us as his younger siblings! Even though the world may not acknowledge this, that condition doesn’t make it any less true. After all, the world didn’t recognize its Creator when he became flesh and lived among the people he had made. God’s Word, however, still proclaims the truth; we ARE the children of God!

Prayer

Thank you, dear Heavenly Father, for the incredible blessing of being your child. I know that I haven’t begun to understand all the glorious things this gift means. However, dear Father, I look forward to what I can learn now about what it means, and I joyously anticipate the day when I can see you face to face and fully know the meaning of this joy. In Jesus’ name. Amen.

By Phil Ware

used with permission.
Phil’s daily devotionals on https://www.verseoftheday.com

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The post The Love of the Father appeared first on Thoughts About God.