“Our Father Which Art In Heaven, Hallowed be Thy Name...." God in Heaven is a loving, kind and merciful father. How sad that many earthly fathers who should reflect that same love, mercy and kindness to their children, do not.

A real loving father tries to make sure that his children have food, clothing, shelter, loving parents, loving siblings and that as they grow, they learn lessons of life appropriate to their age. The loving father does what he can to protect his children from things or persons that may influence them to do things that will harm them and defend them when they are wrongfully accused.

But, having said that, a loving father does not try to prevent the punishment the child deserves if he or she does sonething wrong. Many years ago, Sir Isaac Newton made a great scientific discovery which is credited for the invenion of jet propulsion when he declared: "For every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction." The Bible puts it this way, "For all have sinned and come short of the glory of God."          (Romans 3:23).

Some years ago, while driving  my pulpit-on-wheels taxicab in the Windward Oahu area of Honolulu, I was dispatched to pick up a Marine on the Marine Base. When he got in, he got in from a different spot than expected, coming out from behind a bush. All the way to honnolulu, he is  telling me this tale of woe about a sister who has died and whose children he must go look after. Several things seemed impossible and I was suspicious from early in the trip, but when we reached a certain traffic light, suddenly, he opened the door, jumped out and ran across the street and climbed quickly ofer an eight foot chain link fence into a housing area.
I won't go into a lot of detail here, but I was on hand at the precise moment he returned to the Marine Base in another taxicab from a different company that he also had no money to pay, and after identifying him as the one who had run on me, owing nearly $30.00, his commanding officer told me that he had a lengthy list of offenses for which he was already supposed to be restricted to his barracks. A few days later, the father called my taxi company for me to call him collect, offering to pay me $50.00 to not press charges against his son. By then, based on what I already now knew about the son, I said, "Sir, I know you may not like what I am going to say to you, so I called on MY nickel, not yours. Sir, I believe your son is where he is today (Naval Station Brig, Pearl Harbor), because you have never allowed him  to suffer or be punished for doing things he shouldn't and that he really doesn't know that when you do wrong things you get punished," or words to that effect. The father had little to say to that. I also told him that I would tell exactly what happened, as I was already under subpoena to testify at his court martial. And I did, in fact exactly that. The father did pay me the $50.00 anyhow and I got paid by the Maraine Corps as a witness, so over all, I did well, but some months later, after the son had served this sentence and been sent home, His father had to place him in a State mental hospital and later called the prosecuting officer to tell me that "you know, that preacher was right. It is all my fault. I didn't let my boy get punished for anything. I was always there to defend him and never let him get punished. Now, I know I was wrong."

The clear moral of that story is that a truly loving father prepares his child to live with a realistic view of right, wrong, make wise judgment in choices where it is not a matter of right and wrong, such as evaluating a car or a computer or a house or another investment or even a spouse. Since in real life, there are always consequences for everything we do, some seemingly insignificant, some resulting in life in prison or even death, the truly loving father teaches his child the best way to make wise choices.

There are many reasons biological fathers fail to be real parents to their children, but most go back tohaving come from broken homes, themselves, often coupled with an unbelief in the Bible as the divinely inspired Word of God. There are exceptions, especially in the case of ministers and most especially pastors. While it is true that many times a pastor has fallen into sin with the Pianist or the Choir director or the Church Secretary of some other sister from his congregation, but the reverse is also true. Many really good, believing pastors with a true love for God, for the "sheep" they are called upon to pastor, and their choldren, have been either forced out of the ministry because of an unfaithful wife or at least have gone through serious times of depression and discouragement. I know. "Been there, done that." The result is that my adult children today are not as close to their father as I wish they were. In the case of the oldest four, at least their mother did not talk me down to them, but my youngest daughter's mother chose to hide her using her next brief time husband's name in a masked third state for some nine years of her life, from before Kindergarten through the eleventh grade, and when they finally surfaced and I was able to talk to my daughter, she was so full of false impressions and outright documentable lies. When I would defend myself and offer to show documentary evidence to prove it, my daughter would say, "Don't say anything bad about my mother. She was there when I needed her and you weren't!" It took her several years before her mother made a major blunder that caused my daughter to call up and tell me, "Daddy, you were right about Mom all along. I'm sorry I didn't believe you."

A few years back, I received a prayer request and both prayed for and counselled a pastor whose wife had left him to care for their two pre-teen daughters while she had taken the two smaller boys. He felt sure she was an unfit mother and there was a court battle over custody which so traumatized him that he was thinking of taking his own life. Thankfully, he saw that he had a responsibility to care for the two who were looking to him as their parent and in time, got prayed back through to a place of truly trusting God to do what was best for him, as well.

I said all that to point out that for whatever reason, whether for selfish reasons and a general attitude of irresponsibility on the part of fathers, or whether it was not the father's fault, many children whose fathers are either absent or abusive, have no frame of reference for a truly loving, compassionate, caring and merciful God. As a result, they are not impressed with the concept of a loving Heavenly Father.

And then there are those who sneer at the idea so strongly promoted in Fundamentalist and Evangelical circles and based largely on John 3:16 that Big Daddy God sent little innocent baby Jesus, His Son, into the world to suffer, be tempted and tested and then be wrongfully killed in a mob-murderer scheme. I have heard more often than I can remember, when I would quote that scripture verse and others to show that God loved each of us so much that He sent His only BEGOTTEN Son, and the response would be along the line of: "How could a God who truly loved His Son, deliberately send Him to suffer and die as Jesus did. I wouldn't want a God like that for MY father!" Televangelist Kenneth Copeland used to sing a song in which "the Father reaches over and touches Son on the shoulder and says..." something along the line of, "It's time to bring my children home." I have had passengers in my taxicab "pulpit on wheels" when that song came on and had similar comments about how could a loving god deliberately send his one and only son to suffer and die for people who would hate him, treat him badly and kill him.

This all comes from a misunderstanding of who God the Father is and who Jesus really is. Even Jesus' own Apostles exhibited a degree of misunderstanding before the Resurrection and ascension as we can see by remarks and questions they asked Him. However, by the time the Gospels and the Book of Acts were actually written,they seem to have reached the truth of just who that Man they had followed for more than three years really was. It was not until 325 A.D. that the official doctrine of the chursh became what is now considered orthodox trinitarian.

The actual teaching of the Bible from Genesis to Revelation repeatedly affirms that God is ONE, that His Name is Jehovah, that He is an Omnipresent Spirit (meaning EVERYWHERE present) and that He is Holy. Assording to scripture, He appeared in a physical form to Adam and Eve, to Abraham, possibly Jacob, though that may have been an angel, and the same is true of Joshua. He materialized in the fire to deliver the three Hebrew lads from the firery furnace. And then, the Angel Gabriel announced that the Holy Spirit would come upon the virgin, Mary, and have a son who would be the Son of God.  Even at this early point in the life of Jesus Christ, before He was actually born, it was declared that He was the Son of the Spirit of God, the Holy Spirit. While Jesus lived and was tempted, tested and tried, on earth, that Omnipresent Holy Spirit who is God still was controlling and ordering the farthest star and helping the person in need on earth at the same time, But IN HIM resided the FULLNESS of the Godhead BODILY. It was NOT Big Daddy God saying to His Son, "Go down and be a man and suffer and die without ever sinning so you can be the sacrifice to pay for the sins of the whole world," but The Almighty Spirit of God robing Hinself in flesh and becoming a man through birth while at the same time continuing to rule the Universe. Thus, it was not God the Father telling his little boy God to go and suffer and die to be the sacrificial Lamb of God to take away the sin of the world, but the Almighty God who robed Himself in flesh and took on Himself the form of a man to be that PERFECT Sinless Lamb – without spot or blemish.

I would call your attention to the fact that Isaiah declares that the Child to be born, the Son to be given will, future tense, be called the Everlasting Father.

Enough for now of the proofs that the Almighty God Himself became our Savior in Jesus Christ. So what attributes of a loving Father does He display to us? A loving father wants to give us things that will make us happy and we know from the Bible that "... no good thing will he withhold from them that walk uprightly." (Psalm 84:11).

Like a truly loving earthly father only to a degree of completeness that far exceeds the capabilities of any earthly father, our Loving Heavenly Father is there at any moment we need Him for a feeling of love, caring, compassion, protection, providing our every need, strengthening us fellowshipping with us, empowering us to accomplish things far beyond what we could ever ask or think. And like an earthly father who enjoys having his child come running to him and hugging and kissing and demonstrating genuine love, even so, our Heavenly father is never too busy to enjoy His loving child coming running to Him just to say, "I love you, Jesus!"

And like the earthly father is more eager to do special things for the child that is loving, thoughtful, kind and obdient than for the one that is disobedient and defiamt, even so, our heavenly Father is more quick to respond to the loving and obedient child of God.

If you are already a born-again Christian, then “If we confess our sins  He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness,” (1 John 1:9). If you have never been born again, then “Repent and be baptized, every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ for the remission of sins, and ye shall receive the gift of the Holy Ghost.” (Acts 2:38).

Isaiah 9:6
For unto us a child is born, unto us a son is given: and the government shall be upon his shoulder: and his name shall be called Wonderful, Counsellor, The mighty God, The everlasting Father, The Prince of Peace.