My Father, Your Father
WRITTEN BY DREW MATZ
How God Relates to Us All
We are often taught about the Lord’s Prayer at a young age. Many of us know it by heart, and it has become a sort of generic prayer for gatherings of all types, from community gatherings to sporting events. While we may be familiar with the prayer, it contains some of Jesus’ most rich teaching about God, his kingdom, and how he relates to us:
“Our Father in heaven,
hallowed be your name.
Your kingdom come,
your will be done,
on earth as it is in heaven.
Give us this day our daily bread,
and forgive us our debts,
as we also have forgiven our debtors.
And lead us not into temptation,
but deliver us from evil.”
The prayer contains a lot of information – things we should think about every time we pray. But the most significant thing we are taught is how we should address our creator. We are not told to pray to “Our Judge,” who is waiting to condemn us. We are not taught to address God as the great slot machine, who is waiting to bless us with our “best life now.” No, we are told to address God as our Father. Jesus wants us to have the same relationship with God that he himself has had from the foundation of the world:
O righteous Father, even though the world does not know you, I know you, and these know that you have sent me. I made known to them your name, and I will continue to make it known, that the love with which you have loved me may be in them, and I in them.
John 17: 25-26
This is astonishing. Sin has led us away from God, and we are estranged from him. But in Christ, God wants us to participate in Jesus’ own sonship – an adoption as sons – an adoption we participate in by faith:
But when the fullness of time had come, God sent forth his Son, born of woman, born under the law, to redeem those who were under the law, so that we might receive adoption as sons. And because you are sons, God has sent the Spirit of his Son into our hearts, crying, “Abba! Father!” So you are no longer a slave, but a son, and if a son, then an heir through God.
Galatians 4:4-7
As Paul connects the dots, he provides us with further insight into how God relates to us. Through this Holy Spirit, we cry out to God as “Abba!” This is a term of endearment, much like we would use the word “Daddy” today. Thus, the relationship that God wants with each of us is the same relationship many of us had with our beloved earthly fathers, a relationship of unconditional love that transcends all notions of judgement. When we participate in Christ’s body through faith, we gain God not as a judge to be feared, but as a beloved Father who welcomes his children into his home forever and ever.
