SPIRITUALITY - THE FATHERHOOD OF GOD

With Father’s Day right around the corner, I’ve been reflecting more intently upon the Fatherhood of God. Although I understood and accepted God as Creator, even into my adult years, I had limited understanding of His Fatherhood. Oh, I “got it” intellectually, but there is a significant difference between intellectual and experiential knowledge.

For years, I blamed my lack of intimacy with God on my earthly father who abandoned me when I was very young. The reality, though, is that when Adam sinned, as a member of the human race, I lost the image of God and was no longer His child. No matter how hard I tried, I could never be right with Him.

Yet, at a very young age, I was attracted to the friendship of Jesus and had faith that He died for my sins.
Where did that faith come from? Did I muster it up? Being spiritually dead, was I capable of making a decision to believe in Jesus? For years, I was taught and believed so.

However, I am realizing more and more that I was totally depraved, an object of God’s wrath and held in the spirit of bondage. I had no ability to do anything to deserve His love, including choosing Jesus. Yet,

He chose me!
He regenerated me!
He made it possible for me to have faith in Jesus.
God’s favor didn’t depend on my desire or efforts.
Instead, it was a matter of His mercy.
Why would He do this for me?
Because He has a Father’s Heart.

Determined to recreate a family for Himself, the Father wasn’t detoured by Adam’s sin. Instead, He sent His Son to destroy the devil’s work. Adoption is a “legal” act in the spirit world. In accordance with His pleasure and will, before the creation of the world, Father God elected and set apart His children. According to His perfect plan and timing, Jesus’ Spirit, the Spirt of adoption is sent to regenerate each one, declaring to all the spirit world, “This one I chose to be my child!”

No longer a child of Satan, but of the Triune God, this new life is what made it possible for me to desire what God desires, to believe in and accept what Jesus’ death accomplished on my behalf and to love my Heavenly Father. Having been stamped with the seal of the Holy Spirit which guarantees my position as God’s child, the transformation began!

By the leading of Jesus’s Spirit who lives within me, I receive increasing knowledge of my Heavenly Father’s precious mercy and grace. He is my Daddy, I now have His Name and nothing can separate me from His love!
Understanding that I am a spirit-begotten child, I experience intimacy with my Heavenly Father which I hadn’t known before. My “Abba” chose me simply for the sheer joy and pleasure of loving me. There is no greater father than that because there is no greater love!

[Isaiah 62:2, John 1:12-13, 15:15, Romans 3:10-18, 4:16-17, 5:12, 8:6-8,14-17, 29,38-39, 9:10-23, 11:5-6, 2 Corinthians 6:18, Galatians 3:29, 4:5-6, Ephesians 1:4-5, 13, 2:1-16, Philippians, 1 John 3:8]


Whole-Heartedly,
Bonnie

P.S. Please feel free to contact me with questions, thoughts, topics you’d like to ponder or to read past articles at: http://whole-heartedlife.blogspot.com/. You may also contact me at:
Bonnie Jaeckle
In Search of the Whole-Hearted Life
Diagonal Progress
505 Jefferson St.
Diagonal, IA 50845