Our
Heavenly Father
“If ye then, being evil, know how to give good gifts unto your children: how much more shall your heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to them that ask him?” -- Luke 11:13
What a delightful title for our God! Here our Lord
Jesus Christ teaches us that his Father is our Father. He who is the God and
Father of our Lord Jesus Christ is our heavenly Father. Here are some facts
revealed in the Word of God that I trust will help you meditate upon, more
fully know, trust and worship God your heavenly Father. These are distinct
works ascribed to God the Father that should cause our hearts to adore him and
rejoice to look up to heaven and call him, "Our Heavenly Father."
OUR HEAVENLY FATHER IS THE ETERNAL FATHER OF THE ETERNAL SON (John 1:14). I will say no
more about this great mystery than is plainly revealed in the Word of God. As
the Lord Jesus Christ is the only begotten of the Father from everlasting to
everlasting, full of grace and truth, so God the Father is the Father of the
Son from eternity. There never was a time when the Son began to be the Son or
the Father began to be the Father. Yet, Christ is the eternally begotten Son of
the eternally begetting Father. We know no more about the subject than that;
and even that is too profound a mystery for our puny brains. I do not pretend
to understand this mystery; but I often contemplate it with utter amazement.
We understand and rejoice in
the fact that OUR HEAVENLY FATHER
CREATED THE HEAVENS AND THE EARTH AND ALL THAT DWELL THEREIN (Heb. 1:1-3).
The creation of all things is ascribed to God the Father. He is here described
as creating the worlds by his Son, the Lord Jesus Christ. That does not mean
that the Son was the mere instrument by whom the Father created all things, but
that the Father and the Son together are the co-efficient cause and Creator of
all things.
How our hearts rejoice to
know that IT IS OUR HEAVENLY FATHER WHO
DICTATES AND RULES ALL THE AFFAIRS OF PROVIDENCE (Rom. 11:33-36; Isa.
46:9-11; Dan. 4:35). He who is the Captain of the ship of Time, he who sits at
the helm of the ship and steers the course of all things, according to the map
of his own sovereign purpose, to their appointed destiny is our heavenly
Father! Sometimes we have nothing to fall back on except this. But when a
person can fall back on this, "My Father did this!", he needs nothing
else to fall back on! With confident hearts, in the face of the most tragic of
events, believers can and should say, with old Eli, "It is the Lord; let him do what seemeth him good" (1
Sam. 3:18).
Not only does our heavenly
Father rule all things in providence, HE
DOES IT ACCORDING TO HIS OWN ETERNAL PURPOSE OF GRACE IN SOVEREIGN
PREDESTINATION. Do not be afraid of or ashamed of the Bible doctrine of
predestination. He who predestinated all things is God, our heavenly Father. He
did it from eternity. He did it for our salvation. And he will never alter his
purpose or turn away from the objects of his love, his children, for whom he
predestined all things (Eph. 1:11; Rom. 8:28-31).