Our Father in Heaven - A Short Devotional

OUR FATHER IN HEAVEN Blog header_640x361 by Vince Wilcox

I've recently published a short, verse by verse devotional on The Lord's Prayer. This week, we're sharing an excerpt from it on "Our Father in Heaven." Whether or not you're a subscriber to Discover Worship—for a very limited time—we'd be honored to give you a free downloadable PDF copy of this 80-page study. Click on the button below to access the PDF. Or, if you'd rather get a Kindle or paperback version of the study, they're available at Amazon.com. In the meantime, I invite you to spend a few minutes pondering the wonder of Abba...

"Our Father in Heaven..." — Matthew 6:9

Jesus radically changed the way people prayed to God, his Father. Though there are many Old Testament verses that testify to the Lord’s tender, paternal care, the Jewish religious authorities were outraged when Jesus referred to God as Abba, an intimate and personal term for “Father.” Scholars believe the word Abba is derived from the babbling sounds a baby makes, implying the profound intimacy an infant has with its father. Although Abba doesn’t translate directly as “Daddy,” it was nevertheless audacious for Jesus to refer to God with such familiarity:

So, because Jesus was doing these things on the Sabbath, the Jewish leaders began to persecute him. In his defense Jesus said to them, “My Father is always at his work to this very day, and I too am working.” For this reason they tried all the more to kill him; not only was he breaking the Sabbath, but he was even calling God his own Father, making himself equal with God. (John 5:16-19)

Make no mistake, Jesus is merely addressing his Father the way he has addressed him from before the creation of the universe. Jesus is not a mortal who recognizes that God is his creator. Rather, he is God’s immortal Son, co-existent and co-equal with his Father, the One through whom the world and everything in it was created (John 1:1-3). So it’s appropriate for Christ to address his Father the way a young child lovingly addresses his dad.

The real audacity, however, is that Jesus makes it possible for us to approach God in the same way he does. For Jesus not only came to pay our debt in full, he also came to fully restore us to God’s family. As the apostle Paul writes:

The Spirit you received brought about your adoption to sonship. And by him we cry, “Abba, Father.” The Spirit himself testifies with our spirit that we are God’s children. Now if we are children, then we are heirs—heirs of God and co-heirs with Christ, if indeed we share in his sufferings in order that we may also share in his glory. (Romans 8:15-17)

When Jesus instructs us to pray “Our Father in heaven,” he’s inviting us to experience the same kind of access to God that he has. He can extend this invitation because Christ himself is that access. Jesus makes this audacious claim about himself:

Jesus answered, “I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me. If you really know me, you will know my Father as well. From now on, you do know him and have seen him.” (John 14:6-7)

If Jesus wasn’t who he claimed to be, then the Jewish authorities had every right to condemn him as a blasphemer. But time and again, Christ demonstrated his power over both natural and spiritual forces, his authoritative understanding of biblical truth, and his profound compassion for humanity. Over three years of public ministry—culminating in his death and resurrection--Jesus established beyond a shadow of a doubt that he was the messianic Son of Man prophesied by Scripture as well as the pre-existent Son of God sent to save humanity for our sins.

Even those who put him to death were persuaded this was no mortal man:

When the centurion and those with him who were guarding Jesus saw the earthquake and all that had happened, they were terrified, and exclaimed, “Surely he was the Son of God!” (Matthew 27:54)

Jesus was and is God’s Son. He alone has the right to address his Father as Abba. And Christ conveys this privilege to us because, by his death and resurrection, he has secured our adoption.

If we have received Jesus’ atoning work on our behalf, then the most important aspect of our identity and self-worth isn’t our job title or educational stature or financial status. It isn’t where we live or what we drive or whose ring we wear. We’re no longer defined by our failures or successes nor by our accolades or addictions.

Rather, when we begin to accept our eternal adoption and unconditional acceptance in Christ, we can’t help but exclaim with ecstatic incredulity:

See what great love the Father has lavished on us, that we should be called children of God! And that is what we are! (1 John 3: 1)

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