Seeing that it is Father's day on
Sunday, I decided to write something about God's Fatherheart today,
concerning His desire for us as His children. I will continue with
Moses' story next week.
Now all of us have a general idea
of Fatherhood. Some have memories of good fathers, some have
memories of bad fathers and others didn't have fathers, but they
observed how fathers acted. Now interestingly that is one of the
reasons that God gave us families and parents so that we can
understand His relationship with us a little better. Imagine if we
didn't have a thing such as family around, it would be really
difficult to understand God as our Heavenly Father.
So today I would like to draw a
comparison of one of the things that will make a good father proud
and that would make God proud as well. (I'll leave bad fathers for
now, as I am drawing the comparison with God Who is inherently
good.) What do you think will make a good father proud of his
children? Yes, if they achieve their dreams, yes, if they do their
best in all they do, yes, if they get a good job, but I think what
will make him proud above all else is if his children matured and
acted as mature adults, imitating the good qualities that he has
taught them, and of course when his children accept Jesus into
their lives. That is what will make him proud. If his children
learned from his mistakes and imitated the good things he tried to
teach them and matured into lovely Christians and lovely
citizens.
And the same is with God. Do you
know what He desires of you amongst other things? He wants you to
mature in Him. He wants you to grow in your Christian faith. He
wants you to mature and present His good qualities and
characteristics to the world. He wants you to get to know Him, so
that you can effectively present Him to the world. You are His
ambassador on earth after all, supposed to imitate the practices of
our heavenly home.
But the sad part is that most
Christians remain babies in the faith. Most Christians, once saved,
relax and put their feet up spiritually. They feel that they are
going to heaven, they have their ticket and now they can go on
living on milk. They can stay babies and cry uncontrollably when
something goes wrong. They can demand what they want, and they want
it now, just like a baby. And they are fine with it. They want to
stay like that.
But that is not God's desire. He
wants us to grow. Imagine you go to a fancy restaurant and your 24
year old son sits there with his bottle of milk, while you are
eating a sumptuous steak. And all you say to him is "Goo goo, Gaa
gaa" like to a baby. That is embarrassing! People will start
staring at you! But somehow we think it is okay in our spiritual
life. We can continue drinking milk until Jesus comes back.
Paul warns about this continually.
For example look at 1 Corinthians 3:1-3, "Dear brothers and
sisters, when I was with you I couldn't talk to you as I would to
mature Christians. I had to talk as though you belonged to this
world or as though you were infants in the Christian life. I had to
feed you with milk and not with solid food, because you couldn't
handle anything stronger. And you still aren't ready, for you are
still controlled by your own sinful desires."
God wants us to grow up. He wants
to trust us with more of His Spiritual truths and wants us to move
out in faith for all He has planned for us, but He cannot do it if
we stay babies. He wants ambassadors for Him and unfortunately a
baby does not make a good ambassador! Those of you with children
will know that a baby is selfish and thinks only of himself and how
his immediate need can be satisfied. That is all. He doesn't
consider others and he certainly doesn't stop crying when you tell
him to! Now in the natural it is normal, and even in the spiritual
it is normal if you have just been born again. But if you stay a
baby it is not acceptable in the normal or in the spiritual. We
need to grow up in God. How? I will still do a whole study on it
later on, but for now it is a very good start if you can really
start learning and exploring your Bible and if you can make time
with the Lord throughout the week, not only on Sundays. Learn what
He wants to teach you, search the Scriptures yourself, don't just
rely on what someone else is telling you. Start taking
responsibility and learn about all the wonderful things God has
said about you in the Bible and start living according to it.
Grow up and start making our Father
proud, proud to have mature sons and daughters, presenting Him to
the world.
Father God, please forgive us that
we are still small in our faith. Forgive us if we don't make the
effort to grow, but please help us to. Help us in making time to
grow, we want to grow and we want to make You proud. In Jesus'
Name. Amen