What Is God's Name? (Part 6)

The Bible names God as three Persons:  Father, Son and Holy Spirit; yet some scholars and

What Is God's Name? (Part 5)

Have you ever understood the Bible's names for God, about how and why God is called Father, Son and Holy Spirit?  Have you ever wondered -- or doubted -- whether we can trust

What Is God's Name? (Part 4)

We've been talking here about God's name as Father (we'll look at God's other names later).  We said that we can let God, as a perfect Father, define

What Is God's Name? (Part 3)

Is God a male person?  Why do the descriptions of God in the Bible seem male instead of female?  Why is God called a "father"? Can we use feminine concepts

What Is God's Name? (Part 2)

Last week we introduced some of the questions about how God is named in the Bible, and whether we should add

What Is God's Name? (part 1)

If you want to get in trouble fast, try calling a loved one by the wrong name.  Those of us from large families sometimes got called a sibling's name by Dad or Mom, especially if we were in trouble -- and that just made it worse.  But what do you call God?  In the Bible, he's

The Holy Spirit of Love

I've been writing the last month or so on the Holy Spirit, and how he works to draw us to God and to help us understand the mind of God.  Today we're looking at how the Holy Spirit creates God's love in us.

Daddy

The picture many of us have of God is often one of a stern, harsh ruler, ready to 'take us out' at our next infraction. Some see the OT God as some sort of angry authority figure, balanced out by his really nice and loving son Jesus. The angry God sent the Son, the idea goes, to be punished because of us -- sort of like the vicarious 'whipping boy' employed by royalty when the prince messes up.

But we need to remember that God is one (Deut. 6:4, etc). So there is no difference between the God of the Hebrew scriptures and the God of the Greek New Testament. Whether we think of the Father or the Son, or the Holy Spirit, the passions and love and desires of God are the same.

Jesus referred to God as his Father. To do so in a personal sense was unheard of in Israel's thinking. Observant Jews of his day would not have dared claim God as a Father. But Jesus did!

He told us to pray to "Our Father" in a personal way (Matt. 6:9). So he was opening up that relationship of love and acceptance, tenderness and grace, on a personal level, for the first time.

The Father wants us to experience that relationship with him, not just learn about it in some sort of classroom way. Paul uses some OT verses to construct a new thought in 2 Cor 6:18: "And I will be your Father, and you will be my sons and daughters, says the Lord Almighty." The Father is serious about being our Father, and he wants us to accept our status as his children. He thinks of us as his children, and he wants us to think of him as Father.

Those of us who are fathers know how much we want to be Daddy to our kids. We desire to be close to our children emotionally, to have a deep relationship with them. That's just what the Father says to us also. His love for us was so strong that, before the universe existed, he knew he would have to sacrifice his own self, through the Son, to bring us into intimacy with him: “For God loved the world so much that he gave his one and only Son, so that everyone who believes in him will not perish but have eternal life"(John 3:16).

God has already made that move. We already belong to him as his children and he yearns for us to have that same intimacy with him. That relationship already exists, whether we see it or not. But the experience of it is up to us. How about it? Will you run into his arms and call him Daddy? It will change your life forever.