Our Heavenly Father Series

Our Heavenly Father

The Old Testament provides us with many names and titles for God, the New Testament reveals Him most fully. Jesus shocked the religious leaders of His day by claiming that He had a Father/Son relationship with the God whose name they feared even to pronounce.

Jesus invited His followers to call God "Father", He made this name the primary name by which God is to be known to His followers. That's why we can boldly pray the prayer Jesus taught His disciples, "Our Father who art in Heaven".

The Old Testament usually depicts God not as the Father of individuals but as Father to His people, Israel. Pious Jews, aware of the gap between a holy God and sinful human beings, would never have dared address God as Ab (Hebrew) or Abba, the Aramaic word for "Daddy", which gradually came to mean "dear father." Rather than depicting God as a typical Middle Eastern patriarch who wielded considerable power within the family, Jesus depicted Him as a tender and compassionate father, who extends grace to both the sinner and the self-righteous.

The most frequent term for "father" in the New Testament was the Greek word pater. The first recorded words of Jesus, spoken to His earthly parents, are these: "Didn't you know I had to be in my Father's house?" (Luke 2:49). In John's gospel, Jesus calls God His Father 156 times. The expression "Abba, Pater" is found three times in the New Testament, all in prayer. It is the form Jesus used in His anguished cry in Gethsemane, "Abba, Father, everything is possible for You. Take this cup from Me. Yet not what I will, but what You will." (Mark 14:36)

Today: Praise God for His generous, fatherly love; Give thanks that God is your King and Lord and Father, and ask God to reveal Himself as Father.