How does God Father you?

How does God Father you

When scripture refers to God as a Father, most people get the idea of a fat old man with a long beard ready to give a hug and a kiss for a scraped knee. The idea is that God will supply everything for you and make sure you never get hurt, have any lack or save you from tough times. 

On the other extreme, many people refer to “everyone as God’s children”. If God created us and watches over us, we must be His children.

These are misunderstandings of God as a Father. To be able to understand the total value and definition of fathering we need to look at a father’s responsibilities. What exactly is a father suppose to do?

Focus

When Jesus said “No one comes to the Father except through me.“ in John 14:6, He made a statement of logical truth, not exclusivity. 

Nobody can know me as a father unless they meet my kids. It is my children that makes me a father. If you meet me, but you don’t know my children, you cannot understand what kind of father I am. My children reveal my fatherhood. You may know me as a preacher, friend, coach or by any skill or position I might have, but not as a father, unless you know my children.

Therefore, if you want to be known as a good father, your ultimate focus needs to be on the development and launching of your children. Fathers, by definition, are not concerned about themselves but about the next generation. 

This is what Jesus meant by His statement. Without Jesus you can know God as a Creator or Judge. But you will never be able to know Him as a Father without knowing the Son. God wants you to know him as a Father. Therefore He revealed Jesus and placed all emphasis upon Jesus.

A good father is never selfish. Many people who who are broken as adults will tell you how their fathers did not love them. The goodness of a father gets revealed in his children.

Responsibilities

If a father gets revealed through His children, then the father needs to take responsibility for three things. The father needs to DEFINE, DEVELOP and DEPLOY the child with intentionality and skill. 

These are also the three basic elements a child needs to be able to function in this world. Children need a father to define their identity, develop their skills needed for life and deploy them in their purpose.

Define

Children are born without any personal awareness. They do not come into this world with the ability to define their own character and personality. These are traits that need to be developed in a loving relationship. 

Too many children in this world grow up without a father to define them. Some have no fathers and others have fathers without any sense of self-worth to be able to pass on a clear definition of self. This is why Jesus gives us the spirit of Adoption. The Gospel introduces you to the Father, through Jesus, so that you can receive a Godly identity in Christ.

Without this Godly identity, you will always try to work your way into acceptance. Fathers do not accept children based upon their abilities, but based upon the father’s own character. If the father is good, the child will be accepted. If the father himself is broken, he will expect the child the perform in order to achieve acceptance.

This is why the Gospel is free. God does not expect you to be Holy before you can become His child. Acceptance into God’s family is not based upon your performance, but upon His goodness. 

When a child grows up with unconditional acceptance from a father (either biological or another father figure), the child will have a well defined personal identity.

Develop

Fathers can often be mean. Tough love is a father’s motto. Fathers understand the intrinsic value of constructive pain. 

There is a big difference between destructive and constructive pain. 

To inflict trauma through destructive pain is not good.. This is abusive and evil. Yet, to allow a child to grow up without any pain at all is also negligent. When a father has a desire to develop a child’s character, skills and life, the father will intentionally create scenarios where the child will endure the pain of personal growth and development.

Just like a butterfly that has to wrestle out of a cocoon in order to fly, the child will need to be wrapped in challenges where they must develop their inner potential to get free. When you help the butterfly to escape because you do not want to see it struggle, the butterfly will never be able to fly and will die.

Fathers intentionally develop a child through discipline. When a child does not receive discipline and rejects character development, the child becomes illegitimate. 

God does the same with us. He wants you to develop your fullest potential. Therefore God creates scenarios of constructive pain that teaches you the discipline of character and faith.

As you endure this divine discipline, remember that God is treating you as his own children. Who ever heard of a child who is never disciplined by its father? If God doesn’t discipline you as he does all of his children, it means that you are illegitimate and are not really his children at all. Hebrews 12:7-8

Deploy

If God is your Father, you need to embrace the identity in Christ by which you are DEFINED, and the pain through which you get DEVELOPED. The reason for this is to prepare you for life. After God builds identity into you and disciplines you to maturity, he wants to DEPLOY you into your design and purpose.

Too many people want to be deployed without embracing discipline. They want to skip the pain and just walk in success. This is not the way God works. 

God wants to be your Father. He does not want illegitimate children. He wants you to mature and grow into the fullness of the stature of Christ, so that you can do the good works you were designed to do.

When you are ready and have grown in Christ, God will deploy you into life. 

If you did not have a father as a child that believed in you and deployed you with trust and faith into the world, God will not leave you as an orphan to fend for yourself. He places the orphans in His family and develop them for deployment. 

King David was rejected by his family and weren’t even acknowledged as one of the sons when Samuel came to visit, yet God made him king. When you follow David’s journey you will see that God first had to give him identity. This happened through victories like Goliath and friends like Jonathan. Then God developed David’s character and skills through many painful encounters with enemies and difficult circumstances.

Because David embraced the discipline, God eventually deployed him into his design.

Embrace fathering

God will not leave you as an orphan. He is faithful to His Word and will watch over it to fulfil everything He promised. One of these promises though is to discipline you. When you embrace this discipline, you will know God as Father and be a child of God.

It is in this loving, embracing relationship that you will see the Kingdom of God come in your life.