Our Father in Heaven
Each of us has a perfect Father. He is, as Jesus told us in the Sermon on the Mount, “our Father Who is in Heaven.” God is our Father and our children’s Father, too, and we have the privilege of helping them know Him.
Jesus taught us that our Father gives us the right to become His children.
But as many as received Him,
to them He gave the right to become children of God,
even to those who believe in His name,
who were born, not of blood
nor of the will of the flesh nor of the will of man,
but of God.
John 1:12
The wise earthly father learns how to be a good father by learning from his Father in heaven.
Our Father in heaven is a Father Who keeps His promises. I was sitting at my desk on Sunday night when I noticed an unusual and very pretty light out my window. The sun was setting and lighting the sky and just the tops of the trees. Ray and I went outside and agreed that we had never seen the light and sky look quite like that before.
We came back inside and returned to our desks. When I looked out that window again, I saw a beautiful rainbow. It was near the area of the sky where rainbows usually appear, but farther north and higher in the sky than usual. We hurried outside again.
In the front yard, I saw the sun setting in the west.
They who dwell in the ends of the earth
stand in awe of Your signs;
You make the dawn and the sunset shout for joy.
Psalm 65:8
I set My bow in the cloud,
and it shall be for a sign of a covenant
between Me and the earth.
It shall come about,
when I bring a cloud over the earth,
that the bow will be seen in the cloud,
and I will remember My covenant . . .
Genesis 9:13-15a
Loving earthly fathers like to surprise their children with special treats sometimes. Our Father in heaven does that, too, and one of the most special is the rainbow.
Our Father is merciful.
Be merciful, just as your Father is merciful.
Luke 6:36
Our Father is welcoming.
For we are the temple of the living God; just as God said,
“I will dwell in them and walk among them;
And I will be their God, and they shall be My people.
Therefore, come out from their midst and be separate,” says the Lord.
“And do not touch what is unclean;
And I will welcome you.
And I will be a father to you,
And you shall be sons and daughters to Me,”
Says the Lord Almighty.
2 Corinthians 6:16a-18
Our Father listens to us and rewards us.
But you, when you pray,
go into your inner room, close your door
and pray to your Father who is in secret,
and your Father who sees what is done in secret
will reward you.
Matthew 6:6
What a privilege it is for every Christian to be a child of God, loved with a great love by our Father Who is in heaven.
See how great a love the Father has bestowed on us,
that we would be called children of God;
and such we are.
1 John 3:1a