The Culture Of The Good Father (1)
“Or what man is there among you who, if his son asks for bread, will give him a stone? Or if he asks for a fish, will he give him a serpent?
If you then, being 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!”
Matthew 7:9-11
God is a good Father.
A truly good one.
What would our lives look like if we actually believed that?
How would it impact the way we live our daily lives?
The way spend time with our family?
The way we conduct ourselves in our marriage?
The way we act at our job or around the community?
Would we lie, chest or steal? Would we worry and live crushed by anxiety?
How would we conduct ourselves at our jobs?
How would we respond to set backs and breakdowns in life?
If we actually and truly believed that God is a good Father, the way we simply walk into a room would bear witness to His goodness and create a contrast between those who do not trust God those who live as if it is safe to do so.
It would create a contrast that could make people hungry to know more about the peace we carry. It could create hope that life can be better. It could do these things before we even had a chance to speak a word to them.
Imagine how free we could be if we truly trusted God like a trusting innocent child trusts a truly good father. I can’t think of a better way to be in the world.
The roles of a good father
The Good Father identifies His children
A good father tells His child who they are. He creates a family, a place for them to belong, a place where they can prosper. He sees who they are and calls out the seed of destiny in them, those budding virtues even when they are in the early stages of development so that his children live in the full confidence of who they are and what light they bring into the world that is uniquely theirs.
The father creates a culture that makes His children feel seen. They then feel valuable and important.
How would our lives be different if we lived in full confidence in who we are and what we are made to do?
Imagine the freedom we would walk in, not having to get that sense of identity from our work, our social status, our race, sexuality or the amount of “friends”,“followers”, likes, comments, shares and subscribers.
Imagine being able to take the pressure off the humans in our lives to be and do that for us.
How would that impact those relationships?
Imagine being free to simply love the one in front of us instead of always needing something from them.
The Good Father Provides
A good father makes sure that there is food on the table. He does what needs to be done to make sure that his kids are fed good and nutritious food so that they can grow and prosper into the people that God made them to be.
He does this so that his kids are never anxious about where the next meal is coming from so that they are free to put their focus on the simplicity of enjoying the innocence of childhood.
The Good Father ensures His family has sufficient shelter.
This enables them to remain outwardly focused, taking in the world around them and finding their place there-in.
What would our career path look like if we actually trusted God as our provider? What would our geography look like? How would our work life look if we actually trusted God to be a good father/good provider to us?
To protect
A good father creates an environment where there is safety. A home where there is no threat and no danger again, so they can thrive and grow into the person they have been designed by God to be.
A good father eliminates every threat to the peace of the home. He gets between his family and any enemy that may seek to kill, steal or destroy his home and the family that lives there.
What would life look like if we really believed that we are safe? What would life look like if we truly trusted God to be our protector?
What would that confidence look like?
What kind of life could we live if we believed that we are truly safe from danger and harm and that the father is looking out for us as our protector?
”If you then, being 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!”
These things I mentioned are traits of good natural fathers. How much more will God respond to our requests when we trust Him?
If we really felt safe….
When children feel safe, they will ask, seek and knock with confidence. They will be free to be lead by their curiosity. They will feel free to explore and in that exploration is where they find their place in the world. It’s where they discover for themselves how the world works and where they fit into it.
They are free to seek; find and then learn.
They are free to ask, receive and grow in relationship.
They are free to knock and gain access to satiate their curiosity for what lies behind obstacles. It’s in this exploration that children learn that it’s safe to explore.
The absence of this culture creates anxiety and intimidation. It creates hesitation to explore.
A good father creates an environment where curiosity and exploration are rewarded and as a result, children grow into capable, well-equipped, powerful people who then go on to create the same culture in whatever part of society God leads them to.
The Culture of The Good Father protects the outward orientation of children and shields them from the delusion of lack so that they can grow up with an abundance mindset.
It raises up selfless people who are focused on creativity and service rather than self-preservation.
People who feel safe do not need to exert effort towards self-preservation because they have a present and capable Savior.
We do not need a savior.
We have a savior.
His name is Jesus. If we have seen Him, we have seen The Father as He and The Father are One.
If we have truly put our faith in Him and His finished work, then we do not need a savior any longer and we are free from the need for self-preservation.
If we believe in Jesus, if we actually and truly believe that Jesus is who He says He is, then we are free to live outwardly focused. We are then free to stand and face the darkness in our world like God did in Genesis 1 and, in imitation of God, in whose image we are created we can be the agent of illumination.
We can then say “let there be light” in any and every area of darkness in our world.
We are then capable of introducing The Culture of The Good Father to a world living as orphans. We now are free to lift our eyes off of ourselves and the self-conscious delusions of the fall of man and serve the world by liberating them from the bondage of sin.
The Sun and the Fire
In Matthew 5:14, Jesus speaks to those who followed Him up the mountain, His followers and He tells them who they are, remember, The Good Father identifies His children, telling them who they and passing His name to them.
He looks out on them and on all those who would believe in Him and He says: “You are the light of The World……”. He is telling them that they are the very solution to the darkness. They are light and the nature of who they are brings clarity to the world by virtue of their presence and their work.
He then tells them that they have a choice to hide their light under a basket or to let it shine as a city on a hill, elevated for all to see so that those seeking a thriving city will know where to come.
He tells them, how to go about letting their lights shine by telling them “Let your light so shine before men that they may see your good works and glorify your father in heaven.”
The way we introduce the orphaned world to The Culture of The Good Father is by doing our good works.
Those good works are as light shining in the darkness, as light on the path that leads us home.
Ephesians 2:10 says “For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works which God prepared beforehand that we should walk in them.”
God made us for our work and He made our work for us. Finding that work and doing that work is how we embark on the adventure of our lives.
The Culture of The Good Father enables us to come to the awareness of who we are and how we are called to live. It creates an environment wherein we are able to find the work God created us for.
Our work has been prepared for us beforehand. Before we were born, God has work He has set aside for us. As we delight in The Father and rest in the safety of His covering, as we delight ourselves in Him, He gives us the desires of our hearts which is how we can find out what our work is.
“Trust in The Lord and do good, dwell in the Land and feed on His faithfulness. Delight yourself in the Lord and He will give you the desires of your heart.”
Psalm 37:3-4
As we trust Him, as we seek to do good, as we rest under Hs covering and trust Him in the present moment and location, as we delight in Him, desires will arise in the inside of us and He will give us the desire and the reward us when we seek to satisfy it. When we ask for what our heart starts to long for, as we knock on doors that seem to stand between us and our hearts desire.
The Only Power Darkness Has is Light not shining.