If a parent’s primary task is to mirror
God to his children, what kind of Parent is God? What responsibilities does He
have as our Father?
God promises these three things to His
children in scripture:
1) His Presence (ex. Hebrews 13:5)
2) A Commitment to our Spiritual Growth (ex.
Romans 8:28-29)
3) Physical Provision (ex. Matthew 7:33)
His Presence
When God is our Father, we know that no
matter what we face, we are never alone. We are His highest priority. He is
always available to listen; He is never too busy to spend time with us.
The final words of Jesus’ great commission
(Matthew 28) were, “I am with you always, even to the end of
the age.” Psalms 139:7
rhetorically asks, “Where can I go from Your Spirit? Or where can I flee
from Your presence?” Psalms 23:4 states, “Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death,
I fear no evil, for You are with me.”
A parent can give his children every
external thing world in the world, but without his presence, it is a
meaningless substitute for what they need the most. This is why, when we get
distracted by lesser things in life, God reminds us that His presence is the
most valuable thing we will ever have. This is why Hebrews 13:5 exhorts us to
be “…content with what you have; for He Himself has said,
“I will never desert you, nor will I ever forsake you.”
A Commitment to our Spiritual Growth
Perhaps God’s commitment to our spiritual
growth could be broken down like this:
1) Modeling – Being a living illustration of righteous character and
actions
2) Teaching – Explaining what is being modeled and why it is important
3) Training – Helping to practice what is modeled through
encouragement and feedback
4) Discipline – Providing negative consequences for
intentionally rebelling against what is modeled and taught
God is not a hypocritical parent. He never
asks His children to do something that He Himself is not doing. Nor does He
expect us to live beyond our ability. Instead, He offers Himself as an example
and then patiently teaches and trains us to imitate Him. He does this through
His Word, by His Holy Spirit, and by His anointing on other people.
Acts 1:1 says that Jesus would always “do
and teach”. First He showed His disciples what righteousness looked like.
Then He explained it to them and trained them to imitate Him. We see this
throughout the gospels. Everything Jesus did, He then commanded the disciples
to do. This is why He could say to them before He departed (John 20:21), “As
the Father has sent Me, I also send you.”
As parents, we have no spiritual or moral
authority to teach our children things we aren’t doing ourselves. Nor do we
have authority to discipline them for the same negative things we are doing.
This does not mean we have to live out our words perfectly. But it does mean we
need to at least be sincerely pursuing righteousness in those areas. It also
means being appropriately honest with them about our faults and struggles, which
is to model humility. It means apologizing and owning it when we fall short.
The Bible says repeatedly, “The fear of
the Lord is the beginning of wisdom.” There is a sense in which it is right
for us to fear God’s authority over us. He holds our entire world in the palm
of His hand. He is all-powerful and all-knowing. The boundaries He gives us are
not arbitrary, even if we do not understand them or agree with them. Therefore,
He is willing to provide negative consequences, sometimes severe ones, to teach
us that sin is serious and dangerous.
Good, loving parents do likewise. How will
children learn to fear and respect God’s authority if they do not feel any fear
of us when they are caught intentionally disobeying? They need to know that,
because we love them so much, we are willing to make it painful for them to
choose rebellion. One pastor who lived next to a busy intersection said this: If
my children’s love for me does not keep them out of the street, then their fear
of me will!
However, we must be careful. Sometimes we
can punish our children simply because they are making our life more difficult
and we have the power to make it stop. We punish them for our sake, not theirs.
This is a distortion of God’s nature. God only disciplines us for our own sake
(Hebrews 12:10); it is never repayment for causing Him embarrassment,
irritation, or pain.
Physical Provision
God promises in Matthew 7:33, “But seek
first His kingdom and His righteousness, and all these things [food and
clothing] will be added to you.” Humanists like to ask, “Would you steal
bread to feed your starving family?” to prove that morality is relative.
However, this scenario of either having to sin or starve doesn’t really exist
in God’s economy. Whenever believers
genuinely seek first God’s kingdom and righteousness in their lives, He always
provides for their physical needs.
It is right and good for parents to want
to give their children the very best – the best food, the best clothes, the
best education, the best opportunities. God is the same way. God fully intends
to give His children the very best of every created thing to enjoy beyond limit
or measure. He is excited to do this and we have all of eternity to enjoy these
things. Sometimes He gives us tastes of these things in this life as well.
However, God’s primary objective for His
children in this age is character formation. Wealth – the power to have the
things we want when we want them – is one of the primary idols that destroy
Christians’ faith (1 Timothy 6:10) and renders their lives unfruitful (Matthew
13:22). Wealth without character is a curse. Likewise, when human parents give
their children whatever they want whenever they want it, it plunges them into
ruin. However, parents who prioritize character formation withhold some good
things so their children learn that true contentment is not based on
possessions, but on relationships and righteous maturity.
Children of God
Here is a brief tangent worth mentioning:
The aforementioned promises from scripture (Presence, Commitment to our
Spiritual Growth, and Physical Provision) do not apply to all people. In
today’s growing New Age / Universalist approach to spirituality, even supposed
Christian leaders frequently use language to the effect that every human being
is a child of God. While I agree that every person is loved by God and called
to become a child of God, as Jesus said in Matthew 22:14, “many are called
but few are chosen”.
Scripture is clear that becoming a child of God means
being spiritually reborn (ex. John 1:12-13). This act is also repeatedly
referred to as adoption (ex. Romans 8:15), which means the default
standing of an unbeliever is a spiritual orphan. Therefore, telling an
unbeliever he is a child of God is borderline malevolent. It may very well
strengthen his false sense of security about not needing to be saved and having
nothing to fear after he dies.
Next
Did you know Jesus was a father? So was
the apostle Paul. If you question this, you won’t for long. In the next
chapter, we’ll learn about the highest calling human beings are created to
fulfill.