The Father’s Love
Often on Sunday mornings at CTK we confess our shared faith through the words of the Nicene Creed. This confession begins, “We believe in God the Father. . .” For many, the truth that God is our heavenly Father is one of the earliest pieces of faith we accept. We read of Jesus teaching us to pray, “Our Father who art in heaven. . .”, and for many of us, we learn early on to pray to God our Father.
It is a fundamental truth. It is a marvelous truth. Yet, it is often one of the most difficult to believe. Sure, we say it, but so often there’s a disconnect between what we say and what we believe. We find ourselves wondering: Does God actually care? Does he even notice? Does he even love me?
Often, the circumstances of life crush our confidence in God’s care and concern for us. Certainly this proves true in crises. But, also—even more so?—this belief is squeezed out by the common concerns of everyday life.
We may not notice how the mundane has hidden God’s Fatherly love for us, but it’s evident when we see that we’ve come to view our relationship with God as transactional. We doubt he’ll answer a prayer because of the sharp words we spoke yesterday. We perceive the present difficulty as his petty vengeance against us for not being more on top of our devotional time. And when we do come to come, we come in prayer with a list of demands. We want him to serve us, but maybe even more than that, we’re demanding to know whether or not he’s even listening.
The gospel reminds us of God’s great fatherly love for us. It reminds us that he sees us and that he cares. His love for us is so great that through Jesus Christ he has become our Father.
But when the fullness of time had come, God sent forth his Son, born of woman, born under the law, to redeem those who were under the law, so that we might receive adoption as sons. And because you are sons, God has sent the Spirit of his Son into our hearts, crying, “Abba! Father!” So you are no longer a slave, but a son, and if a son, then an heir through God (Galatians 4:4-7)
The gospel tells us that Christ redeemed us—delivered us from the slavery of sin and death through the payment of his blood. We’re not just set free, but we’re adopted. We’re brought into God’s family as sons because we now share in the relationship that the Son has with the Father. We’re accepted as sons because on the cross the Son was rejected—suffering God’s wrath and judgment.
As God’s adopted children, this passage from Galatians reminds us, we can pray like Jesus. We can call out to God as our Father as only a child can. We can pray with the confidence that God hears and cares for us, not because of anything we have done but because of everything that Christ Jesus has done for us.
