OUR HEAVENLY FATHER
“Our Father in heaven.”
Matthew 6:9
What is that spirit of a child—that sweet spirit that makes him recognize and love his father? I cannot tell you unless you are a child yourself, and then you will know. And what is “the Spirit of adoption, whereby we cry, Abba, Father” (Romans 8:15 KJV)? I cannot tell you, but if you felt it, you will know it. It is a sweet compound of faith that knows God to be my Father, love that knows Him as my Father, joy that rejoices in Him as my Father, fear that trembles to disobey Him because He is my Father, and a confident affection and trustfulness that relies upon Him, and casts itself wholly upon Him, because it knows by the infallible witness of the Holy Spirit, that Jehovah, the God of earth and heaven, is the Father of my heart. Have you ever felt the spirit of adoption? There is nothing like it beneath the sky. Other than heaven itself there is nothing more blissful than to enjoy that spirit of adoption. When the wind of trouble is blowing, and the waves of adversity are rising, and the ship is reeling to the rock, how sweet to say “My Father,” and to believe that His strong hand is on the helm! There is music; there is eloquence; there is the very essence of heaven’s own bliss in that word, “My Father,” when said by us with an unfaltering tongue, through the inspiration of the Spirit of the living God.
And so we come to Him. When I talk to my Father I am not afraid He will misunderstand me; if I put my words a little out of place He understands my meaning. When we are little children we babble at times; still our father understands. Our prayer may be little broken things; we cannot put them together, but our Father, He hears us. Oh, what a beginning is “Our Father” to a prayer full of faults, and a foolish prayer, perhaps a prayer in which we are going to ask what we should not ask for! The Lord reads the meaning and the desires of our heart. Let us draw near to His throne as children coming to a father, and let us declare our needs and our sorrows in the language that the Holy Spirit teaches us.
Holy Spirit, how is it possible to be so loved by our heavenly Father? I rejoice as a child of God. Amen.
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