Christian father

“ Yes, my friends, when you say, ‘Our Father, hallowed be Thy name,’ you pray that all men may come at last to look up to God as their Father, to love, serve, and obey God as His children; and for what higher blessing can you pray? Ay, and you pray, too, that men may learn at last the deep meaning of that word—father; that they may see how Godlike and noble a trust God lays on them when He gives them children to educate and make Christian men; you pray that the hearts of all fathers may be turned to the children, and the hearts of all children to the fathers ”

“ Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of mercies, and the God of all comfort; who hast predestinated us to the adoption of children through Jesus Christ; who alone hast immortality, and inhabitest light inaccessible; with joy we give thanks to thee, who hast made us worthy to be partakers of the lot of the saints in light; for we have not received the spirit of bondage again in fear: but we have received the spirit of the adoption of sons, whereby we cry, Abba, Father. For the Spirit himself gives testimony to our spirit, that we are the sons of God. ”

“ How then can we call God Father, and yet refuse to believe that He may be as loving as a human father, and that God’s children may be purified by God Himself, giving His own blood in the blood of His Son as a ransom for the sinful souls of men? ”

“ In contrast with these few and doubtful verses, the Scriptures speak many times and clearly of God's Fatherhood in relation to a portion of mankind. Of the Pharisees, Jesus said, "ye are of your father the devil"; but he taught his disciples to pray, "Our Father." The most familiar figure of speech by which entrance into the Christian life is described is that of a new birth. Not all men, but some only are born again, not by their own will, but of God; and thus God gives them authority to become sons of God. ”

“ But actually today most churches look upon Jesus as a kind of subordinate Deity, as a Son subject to the Father, despite the fact that He said: "All power is given unto me in heaven and earth." And they look upon the Holy Spirit as subject to both Father and Son, but as a Person separate and distinct from the Father and the Son. ”

“ The knowing and saying of the Lord’s Prayer, as the prayer in Christ’s name, was in the early Church regarded as being, like the knowing and saying of the Creed, the privilege of those only who were members of the Christian family. It was the prayer of the family because of its first words, “Our Father.” The Christian creed, we know, would teach us to believe that God is the father of all men, and that He wills all men to realize their sonship. They cannot reach true manhood till they have come to know themselves to be, and to realize what is involved in being, sons of God. ”

“ And surely it is a matter of joy, that your faith in Jesus has been preserved; the Comforter that should relieve you is not far from you. But as you are a Christian, in the name of that Saviour, who was filled with bitterness and made drunken with wormwood, I conjure you to have recourse in frequent prayer to 'his God and your God,' the God of mercies, and father of all comfort. Your poor father is, I hope, almost senseless of the calamity; the unconscious instrument of Divine Providence knows it not, and your mother is in heaven. ”

“ Jesus acknowledged no ties of the flesh. He said: “Call no man your father upon the earth; for one is Fleshly ties. your Father, who is in Heaven.” Again he asked: “Who is my mother, and who are my brethren, but they who do the will of my Father?” We have no record of his calling any man by the name of father. He recognized Spirit as the only Creator, and therefore as the Father of all.
First, in the list of Christian duties, he taught his followers the healing power of Truth and Love. He Primal healing. ”

“ Through that which is highest in man we are enabled to discern something of His character. But it is specially in and through Jesus Christ that the distinctive character of the Divine Personality is declared. Christ reveals Him as our Father, and everywhere the New {27} Testament writers assume that men stand in the closest filial relations to him. In the fundamental conception of divine Fatherhood there are implicitly contained certain elements of ethical significance. ”

“ There we ourselves shall be the sons of God, and God will be our Father. Think what is the relation of an affectionate son to a good and wise father. What submission with equality—what complete sympathy and community of interest—what intimate communication of thought and feeling! So, O Christian soul! shall it be between you and God. God will be your God, and you will be His child. {257} Thou shalt dwell in His home, and all that He hath shall be thine. "All things are yours, the world, or life, or death, or things present, or things to come ”

“ For such a Father, then, who has overwhelmed me with these inestimable riches of His, why should I not freely, cheerfully, and with my whole heart, and from voluntary zeal, do all that I know will be pleasing to Him and acceptable in His sight? I will therefore give myself as a sort of Christ, to my neighbour, as Christ has given Himself to me; and will do nothing in this life except what I see will be needful, advantageous, and wholesome for my neighbour, since by faith I abound in all good things in Christ. ”

“ We turn from the shadow to the reality; and realizing the insufficiency of home as a mere type, we turn with anxious hope to that which it typifies—our heavenly home.
Heaven is the antitype of the Christian home. There the latter reaches its consummation, and reaps the rich harvest of its great reward. The Father; the Mother of us all; our Brethren; our inheritance; our all sufficiency are there. Yea, all that is included in the dear name of home, is treasured up there, for the child of God. In that better land he finds the reality of his home on earth ”

“ Do you fancy God less of a father than you are? Is He not The Father, the perfect Father, ‘from whom every fatherhood in heaven and earth is named?’ Oh, believe that He is indeed a Father; believe that all the love and care which you can show to your children is as much poorer than the love and care God shows to you, as your obedience to your earthly parents is poorer and weaker than the love and obedience of Jesus Christ to His Father. God is as much better a Father than you are, as Jesus Christ is a better Son than you are. ”

“ May He enable us to believe that every building in which He permits us to worship Him, and to present before Him the finished sacrifice of Christ, is indeed the house of our Father, because of His Father! ”

“ The Father is living love, and this life of the Father is in his Sons. And the spirit of the Father is in his Son's sons—mortal men. When all is said and done, the Father idea is still the highest human concept of God. ”

“ Verse 20
Now unto God and our Father - God is our Father in Christ Jesus; and such pity as a father hath for his children, such has the Lord for them that fear him; as a father is concerned for the support and life of his children, so is God concerned for you. A father may be poor, and unable to help his most beloved children; God, your Father, is infinite in his riches of his grace and glory, and out of his abundance we have all received, and grace for grace. Therefore, to God our Father, be glory for ever and ever! ”

“ When we speak of God as a Father we must not forget that He is only such in its full meaning to those who have become His children by faith in Christ Jesus; and that the sad and solemn words of the loving Saviour to the unconverted were, "Ye are of your father, the devil." ”

“ By these words of Holy Scripture, he continually invites every one to come to him that stands in need of mercy. How then canst thou imagine that He will forsake thee in the time of trouble, who endured so many and great miseries for thy sake! It is for this that God calls himself our Father. Now we know that a father is more compassionate and tender than a master: so that he would not have us dread him, but love him as a dutiful child does an indulgent father. ”

“ They think of fathers, like too many among themselves, proud, and arbitrary, selfish and cruel. They say in their hearts, even such fathers as we are, such is God. Therefore, they shrink from God, and turn from Him to idols, to the Virgin Mary, or Saints, or any other beings who can deliver them (as they fancy) out of the hands of their Father in heaven. ”

“ No one, however strong he may feel his obligations, will ever be man enough to fulfill them except he be a Christian—that is, one who, like Christ, cares first for the will of the Father. ”

“ If men once learnt to hallow the name of Father, to think of a father as one who not only possessed power but felt love, who not only had rights which he would enforce, and issued commands which must be obeyed, but who felt yearning sympathy for his children’s weakness, an active interest in their education, and was ready to labour for, to sacrifice himself for, his family—That would be truly to hallow the name of Father, and look on it as a holy thing, whether in heaven above or in earth beneath. ”

“ But when Jesus Christ speaks of the glory of the Lord, it is no longer in the pompous style of the prophets; he calls him a holy Father, a righteous Father, a merciful Father, a Shepherd who pursues a strayed sheep, who kindly bears it home himself; a Friend who yields to the importunities of his friend ”

“ The Lord Jesus Christ told men that God was their Father. Not merely to the Apostles, but to poor, ignorant, sinful wretches, publicans and harlots, He spoke of their Father in heaven, who, because He is a perfect Father, sends His sun to shine on the evil and the good, and His rain to fall on the just and on the unjust. ”

“ He who sees Me, sees the Father.’ For the Son is the natural image of the Father, unchangeable, in everything like to the Father, except that He is begotten, and that He is not the Father. The Father begets, being unbegotten. ”

“ The Father is the God over all; Christ is the only-begotten God, the beloved Son, the Lord of glory; the Holy Ghost is the Comforter, who is sent by Christ, land taught by Him, and proclaims Him.
Of What Character He Ought to Be Who is Initiated. ”

“ We must worship him as God, and our Lord; for this is the will of God, that all men should honour the Son even as they honour the Father; nay, in so doing it is reckoned that they honour the Father. If we confess that Christ is Lord, and pay our homage to him accordingly, it is to the glory of God the Father, Phil. ”

“ Our faith, therefore, is directed to God through His Son, who strengthens it in us; and Celsus can never show that the Son of God is the cause of any sedition or disloyalty in the kingdom of God. We honour the Father when we admire His Son, the Word, and Wisdom, and Truth, and Righteousness, and all that He who is the Son of so great a Father is said in Scripture to be. ”

“ Do you earth fathers take pleasure in torturing your children with uncertainty about their place of abiding love in your human hearts? Neither does your Father in heaven leave his faith children of the spirit in doubtful uncertainty as to their position in the kingdom. If you receive God as your Father, then indeed and in truth are you the sons of God. ”

“ And I humbly beseech you, most loving father, and Christ’s servants who are with you, to intercede fervently with the righteous in behalf of my frailty; and to admonish those, to whom you shall show my work, to do the same. Fare you well, my good and ever loving father in Christ. ”

“ We are also brethren through our second Father, Christ, through whom we have been born again, and, as it were, created anew in the likeness of God, and called to the common inheritance of God, our Father in heaven. ”

“ Think: the Father of Jesus, with whom, in all his knowledge and all his suffering, the grand heart was perfectly, exultingly satisfied,—that Father he calls our Father too. He shares with his brethren—of his best, his deepest, his heartiest, most secret delight, and makes it their and his most open joy: he shares his eternal Father with us, his perfect God with his brethren. ”

“ While you should honor your rulers and reverence your teachers, you should call no man Father in the spiritual sense, for there is one who is your Father, even God. Neither should you seek to lord it over your brethren in the kingdom. ”

“ For this cause I bow my knees to the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, of whom all paternity in heaven and earth is named, that he would grant you, according to the riches of his glory, to be strengthened with power by his Spirit unto the inward man. ”

“ It seems to us astonishing that parents were ever capable of causing their children to pass through the fire to an idol, but what is this compared with what our pious fathers and mothers have believed concerning their children's sufferings in the eternal world, for the glory of that God who is the Father of the spirits of all flesh? ”

“ The fatherhood of God has become so familiar a phrase that we hardly realize what a revolution of thought it represents. In the whole Old Testament, so the scholars say, God is spoken of but seven times as Father; five times as Father of the Hebrew people, once to David as the father of his son Solomon, and once as a prediction that sometime men would thus pray. And so when Jesus at the beginning of his prayer says: "After this manner pray, Our Father," he is opening the door into a new conception of God's relation to man. ”

“ In the earliest beginnings of life, the parent—to speak with reverence—stands to his child, in a very peculiar sense, for and in the place of God. We gain the conception of the Father in heaven first from our experience of fatherhood on earth; and so it may be said of this commandment, in a sense in which it cannot be said of any other, that it is the foundation of all religion. ”