I have always struggled when people call God daddy, or dad. When Ric Pino wrote the song "We have the best dad in the whole world, in the whole world." I sang it, had our youth band sing it, jumped up in down to it but never understood fully what it meant. I knew in my head, but in my heart I had no clue as to what it felt like to know the Almighty God Creator of the universe as my father. I think it is said a lot, and prayed a lot but what does it mean. Guess what! People write books about it :) So you can know, and you can hear it on youtube, and read about it in peoples blogs. But you will never know until you sit down with God and in whatever way he speaks to you, listen and come to know in your heart that God is indeed your father. I did a study in the word of what it means to have God as your father. There are plenty of verses on the subject but for the sake of repeating myself we will use Psalm 103:13.
"As a father pities his children
So the Lord pities those who fear him"
-Psalm 103:13
The preface to this specific verse is David proclaiming who God is and blessing Him. "Bless the lord all my soul, and all that is within me. Bless His holy name!" The whole chapter is full of who God is and how stunning He is.
Pities in the american dictionary of this age in time means:
Pities - The feelings of sorrow or compassion caused by the suffering and misfortunes of others.
Pity in the Hebrew according to Strongs means:
Pity - Racham (ra-kham') Verb
to love, love deeply, have mercy, be compassionate, have tender affection, have compassion,
(a) Qal - to love
(b) Piel - to have compassion, be compassionate
(a) of God, man
(c) paul - to be shown compassion, be compassionate
"who fear Him" in the hebrew according to Strongs:
"who fear Him" - Yare - Adj
1. fearing, reverent, afraid
So after understanding what some of the terms in this verse means we come to this conclusion:
(1) Father - Trait of God
1. He has tender affection for you, He is compassionate towards you and loves you deeply.
Meaning- He wants to help you in your time of need. He loves you.
Relevant Application- Mother Theresa, always accepted someone. No matter their belief, nationality, or ailment. She always took care of those around her.
*I am not feminizing God. He is neither sex. He is the essence of both because He created man (meaning both men and women) in his image. (Genesis 1:26-27) That's why when you become married the two can become one. (Genesis 2:24)
Mother Theresa was human, so she could only have life changing influence on a limited number of people. Only a small number of people could feel accepted by her. She couldn't tell everyone in the world that she accepted them. God is omnipresent, meaning He is everywhere, all the time. So if God takes care of those around Him and has compassion on you and deeply loves you. He accepts you. No matter where you are, what you are doing or who you are with YOU are accepted by God.
What does this mean to you- He loves you so much, with such a pure love that He would do anything to help you if you would just let Him. A good father doesn't force his child to play basketball if their passion is singing. A good father suggests basketball knowing it is good for the child but lets them pursue their passion because although he is their father he knows you won't enjoy all the aspects of basket ball if you are forced. It will become a duty and never become a passion. God wants you to come to Him because He is your passion.
Jesus had compassion on the sick and they were healed. You have compassion on, those who need justice, those who need healing, those who need love, those who need deliverance, whatever you have compassion on God moves through that and your faith. God, having compassion on you, means those things that you need. He moves through compassion and faith. You are healed, you have justice, you have freedom ect. But if you won't accept that He has accepted you and loves you and has compassion on you, then you cannot receive the effects of Gods compassion on you.
Mental Block- You have all of those promises and more (you can find them in the bible. :D) but you won't accept them because IF you do and THEN they don't happen (or you they don't happen like you wanted or as quickly as you wanted) you feel rejected. For myself I tend to have this cycle, I don't want to go up for prayer because if I do what if they skip me, or nothing happens. The cycle is Rejection resulting in Humiliation, then resulting in Inferiority which cycles back into feeling abandoned and rejected. This is an endless cycle that needs to be taken care of. The problem is knowing how.
My father once said in a sermon:
"If you poke at a scar and it still hurts, it's not healed" - Pastor Sam McKinney
The reality of this is astounding. For example; If I cut my hand whittling on a stick, that will hurt for a few days. I need to bandage it, put medicine on it and let it heal. The day after if I bump it or poke it. The wound is still bruised and it hurts. The next day it will hurt but not as bad and so on until a week later it doesn't hurt at all and a few weeks down the road you would have never known there was a cut there. That's a small wound. Then there are surgeries, which take months to heal and then the incision hurts for years. The scar is there and you know something happened there but two years after the surgery the incision is bumped and you feel that pain, it is nothing compared to the morphine you had to take in the beginning to stop the pain but it is just a little reminder of what happened there.
So, some scars you can see, some you can't, some heal quickly, and some take a long time.
If you go through something that hits those core fears in your life, rejection, inferiority, abandonment, ect. That hurts, and it hurts for a while. You go to God and want him to take it away quickly, like it was a small wound. But you can't fix major issues with small wound tactics. If you do you could lose a limb, or be in terrible health for a long time. Let God operate on you, Let your father wrap you in His arms and love on you. Sit in his presence and feel his security. A child lays in their fathers chest because his heart beat is a sense of being safe. They run to their father to have him kiss a boo boo because that will fix it. But when they need surgery, or go through a terrible illness, they just want the father to be in the room because although a kiss won't fix this boo boo, and a hug won't take all the pain away. His presence is security that everything is going to be ok, and they are going to make it. A father will sit in the hospital room for hours when a child is ill. They may not say a word to each other but they are together.
Sometimes just sitting in the presence of God can heal those wounds. Not the first or second time, maybe the third or 17th but whether for hours or minutes sitting with God heals all wounds.
Sometimes the father and child get more time together during that time of pain or illness than they ever got before. So while the healing is happening intimacy and growth happens as well. You get closer and deeper with each other than ever before. You will get closer to God in the times where you can just sit in his presence and feel Him than you would in your regular routine of prayer time.
Who God is and His roles in our live sometimes overlap. In the case of the original verse (Psalm 103:13) He is father. In the application that applied greatly to my life, and yours, He was Father, Great Physician, and through that healing and intimacy with the Father He is also lover. He is your Father and you His son. Speak what the word says about Sonship over yourself, this and if you would like reading the book Spiritual slavery to spiritual sonship by Jack Frost will help you know who God is and who you are in Him.
References:
BlueLetterBible.com
Pastor Samuel McKinney
Spiritual Slavery to Spiritual Sonship - Jack Frost
Fathers.com - national center for fathering
Alisson Alexander
No comments:
Post a Comment