The Fatherhood of God Isn’t a Bad Thing

With so many poor examples of fathers, it should be no surprise that considering God as Father presents quite a challenge. We must push through our baggage and see our Heavenly Father as described in Scripture.

Fathers don’t have the best reputation these days. Our TV sitcoms have transitioned from stabilizing father figures within homes to absent situations where dads are either physically missing or emotionally absent. Many animated movies show caring mothers raising a family all by themselves. Superhero franchises rarely offer an excellent example of a father, and if there is one, give enough time for the sequel to be released so that you can see the unfortunate truth behind the curtain. Looking even in galaxies far, far away, you will realize that the whole intergalactic struggles center around father issues.

Something is amiss. The media is trying to communicate something about our reality that must be addressed. Many fathers are not being who they were called to be. Ask anyone who works with troubled teens or hardened criminals, and you will discover that absent fathers seem to be a common trait. Whether that has been your reality or not, you cannot deny the societal impact of this widespread issue.

This situation is problematic because God reveals Himself as Father to us through the Scriptures.

As a father has compassion on his children, so the LORD has compassion on those who fear him.

Psalm 103:13

It’s not beyond our enemy to attack the examples of God’s faithfulness. By tearing down fathers’ reputations, we begin to distrust anyone bearing such a name. But our Heavenly Father is not trying to be like our earthly ones; it is quite the opposite. We must repair our perception of true fatherhood by looking at the perfect One.

If you have a difficult time viewing God as Father, then allow the Scripture to reintroduce you to what fatherhood is supposed to look like:

• Deuteronomy 1:29-31 – Then I said to you, ‘Do not be in dread or afraid of them. The Lord your God who goes before you will himself fight for you, just as he did for you in Egypt before your eyes, and in the wilderness, where you have seen how the Lord your God carried you, as a man carries his son, all the way that you went until you came to this place.’
• Deuteronomy 32:6 – Do you thus repay the Lord, you foolish and senseless people? Is not he your father, who created you, who made you and established you?
• Psalm 68:5 – A father of the fatherless and protector of widows is God in his holy habitation.
• Psalm 103:13 – As a father shows compassion to his children, so the Lord shows compassion to those who fear him.
• Proverbs 3:11-12 – My son, do not despise the Lord’s discipline or be weary of his reproof, for the Lord reproves him whom he loves, as a father the son in whom he delights.
• Isaiah 46:4 – even to your old age I am he, and to gray hairs I will carry you. I have made, and I will bear; I will carry and will save.
• Isaiah 63:16 – For you are our Father, though Abraham does not know us, and Israel does not acknowledge us; you, O Lord, are our Father, our Redeemer from of old is your name.
• Isaiah 64:8 – But now, O Lord, you are our Father; we are the clay, and you are our potter; we are all the work of your hand.
• Hosea 11:1 – When Israel was a child, I loved him, and out of Egypt I called my son.
• Malachi 2:10 – Have we not all one Father? Has not one God created us? Why then are we faithless to one another, profaning the covenant of our fathers?
• Matthew 6:26 – Look at the birds of the air: they neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not of more value than they?
• Matthew 7:9-11 – Or which one of you, if his son asks him for bread, will give him a stone? Or if he asks for a fish, will give him a serpent? If you then, who are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father who is in heaven give good things to those who ask him!
• Luke 12:32 – Fear not, little flock, for it is your Father’s good pleasure to give you the kingdom.
• John 1:12 – But to all who did receive him, who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God.
• Romans 8:14-15 – For all who are led by the Spirit of God are sons of God. For you did not receive the spirit of slavery to fall back into fear, but you have received the Spirit of adoption as sons, by whom we cry, “Abba! Father!”
• 1 Corinthians 8:6 – Yet for us there is one God, the Father, from whom are all things and for whom we exist, and one Lord, Jesus Christ, through whom are all things and through whom we exist.
• 2 Corinthians 1:3-4 – Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of mercies and God of all comfort, who comforts us in all our affliction, so that we may be able to comfort those who are in any affliction, with the comfort with which we ourselves are comforted by God.
• 2 Corinthians 6:18 – And I will be a father to you, and you shall be sons and daughters to me, says the Lord Almighty.
• Ephesians 1:3 – Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in Christ with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places.
• Ephesians 4:6 – one God and Father of all, who is over all and through all and in all.
• Hebrews 12:7 – It is for discipline that you have to endure. God is treating you as sons. For what son is there whom his father does not discipline?
• James 1:17 – Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of lights, with whom there is no variation or shadow due to change.
• 1 John 3:1 – See what kind of love the Father has given to us, that we should be called children of God; and so we are. The reason why the world does not know us is that it did not know him.