God. He’s so far above and beyond us.
When I think of God, I think about how He is bigger than the universe with its billions of stars in millions of different galaxies. The universe is so immense, I wonder if God created it to give us a visual picture of what infinity is like.
At the same time, He designed the smallest units of life. He wrote the code that organizes biological organisms and causes them to operate. The level of complexity on even the “simplest” cell is staggering.
He is greater than the universe yet intimately involved in the smallest details of life.
Of course, I am not the first to stand in awe of our Creator. Our tools have enabled us to see things on a larger and smaller scale than our ancestors, but they too stood in awe at the Creator.
In some ways, they might have seen Him better because they were in more direct, regular contact with what He had created in an agrarian and pre-industrial society.
One of the songs of David, the shepherd turned king, went like this: “When I consider your heavens, the work of your fingers, the moon and the stars, which you have set in place, what is mankind that you are mindful of them, human beings that you care for them?” (Psalm 8:3–4). I’m sure he sang that many times as he went to sleep outside under the moon and stars.
In light of all this, it would be easy to think of God as distant, as One who had no interest in humans at all.
But that’s where Jesus comes in. How does He speak of God? As Father.
Jesus taught us to think of the infinite, almighty, all-wise Creator in intensely personal terms: the Father.
He did more, though, than just teach us to call God “Father.” He taught us what this means. That’s good because we all bring different things to the table when it comes to the word “father” or “dad.”
Here’s what He taught us to think about our heavenly Father.
1. The Father will take care of us: “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?” (Mt. 6:26).
2. The Father wants to give us good things: “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!” (Mt. 7:11).
3. The Father wants us to imitate Him: “But I tell you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, 45 that you may be children of your Father in heaven. He causes his sun to rise on the evil and the good, and sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous” (Mt. 5:44–45).
4. The Father gives us guidance: “Blessed are you, Simon son of Jonah, for this was not revealed to you by flesh and blood, but by my Father in heaven” (Mt. 16:17).
5. The Father wants us to believe in His unique Son: “For my Father’s will is that everyone who looks to the Son and believes in him shall have eternal life, and I will raise them up at the last day.”
These are just some of the ways Jesus taught us to think about our Father in heaven. You can read what else Jesus said about it here.
I think the reason that Jesus put such a strong emphasis on God as Father is because He knew that He was the unique Son of the Father. Jesus is a Son of the Father in a way that no one else is.
He said, “All things have been committed to me by my Father. No one knows the Son except the Father, and no one knows the Father except the Son and those to whom the Son chooses to reveal him.”
However, Jesus said that we also should think of God as our Father. When He saw Mary after His resurrection, He said, “I am ascending to my Father and your Father, to my God and your God” (John 20:17). In other words, Jesus wants us to think of our relationship with God in the same intimate way in which He thought of it.
The God who made the universe is our Father. That’s worth thinking about . . . every day.
Nicely said, Wes.