You've heard me say that prayer and the study of scripture are essential to a relationship with Jesus the Son.  It's no less true for a relationship with God the Father.

You've heard me say that part of loving Jesus is loving what Jesus loves.  Part of loving the Father is loving what the Father loves – notably, His Son and the same things His Son has a passion for.

I've said in the past (some of you will remember) how Jesus came to restore the Father relationship – to bring us back together with the One who made us.  And that we're now called to be spiritual matchmakers and reconcilers, leading people back to the one who loves them.

Some of you have also heard me say that some people have such a stunted or pained or distorted image of fatherhood that it's hard to get wrapped around a relationship with God the Father.  It's hard to see Him or to love Him because of the clutter of past heartaches or deprivations.  So for some, it's easier to accept and love Jesus, and even the Holy Spirit, and then let Son and Spirit reintroduce the Father in a new light so that we can be reparented.

A few weeks back we talked about loving God with heart, soul, and strength.  Now we're breaking it down to Son, Spirit, and Father, so that we can see God in something closer to His completeness.  Let me pause, though, and acknowledge that God the Father is too big for us, too much for us, too complex for us to understand completely.  Still, while God is not completely understandable, the core of the Christian message is that God has made Himself knowable through the natural revelation (nature), through special revelation (scripture), through personal revelation (Jesus), and through the many kind interventions that deepen our love and trust in Him.  

For today's purpose, I've chosen 4 aspects of our relationship with the Father.  There are more.

For many Christians, the first relational impulse in relationship to God the Father is respect – respect for God's authority.  This is a good instinct.  The Bible is our relationship manual, and it starts with images of power and authority.  "In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth."  The whole story of scripture hinges on Psalm 24:1, "The earth is the Lord's and fullness thereof, the world and all who dwell therein."  Isaiah 64:1 describes the Lord as a Father, but also as the potter who formed us like clay and pleads with Him not to be angry beyond measure.  Jesus (John 14) defines loving His Father by doing exactly what the Father asks, and defines our love for God the Father in virtually the same terms – obedience.  Giving God authority in our lives is respectful.  Acknowledging God's authority, whether people give it or not, is purely realistic.  Living lives of loyalty, in light of God's authority, seems the natural response.  It's also smart.  John 5:24 starts a poignant conversation about the Father's authority, as the giver of life, to judge the dead and grant eternal life.  But God wants more than to be an authority figure, and for some of us this is new.  God wants an exchange of affection.  In Jeremiah 31:3, God says, "I have loved you with an everlasting love; I have drawn you with loving kindness."  Oswald Chambers writes about the wooing of God.  While our Father could claim mastery of us by rightful authority, He chooses to woo us with loyal love and tenderness in the midst of life's uncertainties.  Paul also quotes from Isaiah 64, wooing us on behalf of God.  "No eye has seen, no ear has heard, no mind has conceived, what God has prepared for those who love Him."  Revelation speaks of heaven in the language of love and romance – like a bride adorned for her bridegroom.  The Father of the Bride apparently delights in us – imagine.

Do I dare to believe that I love my children more than God loves His?

Romans 8:15-17 "…you did not receive a spirit that makes you a slave again to fear, but you received the Spirit of sonship.  And by him we cry, 'Abba, Father'.  The Spirit himself testifies with our spirit that we are God's children.  Now if we are children, we…"

Another worthy part of loving the Father is admiration.  The entire book of Psalms is a song parade of admiration.  The Psalms are a hymn book of admiring songs that tell God how strong, wise, beautiful, gracious and awesome He is.  David, the chief contributor to the collection, was a huge admirer of God.

Oswald Chambers writes, "Whisper it not only to your heart in its hour of darkness, but here in your corner of God's earth, live in the belief of it; preach it by your sweetened, chastened, happy life; sing it in consecrated moments of peaceful joy, sing until the world around you is wrought to sympathy with hopes and fears it heeded not."

Then let admiration find its fullest expression in imitation.  Jesus loves the Father so much that he says he only does what he does because He sees His Father doing it (John 5:19).  Jesus also says in the Sermon on the Mount, "be ye perfect even as your heavenly Father is perfect."  (Matthew 5:48)  Paul reiterates in Ephesians 5:1, "Be imitators of God as dearly loved children and live a life of love."

Like little children playing dress up, mimicking mom and dad, we love God best by following His example, growing into His character (with His transforming help) and adopting the Father's worldview.

Jesus told us, over and over in so many ways, the things that we should know and love about His Father.  He really came to gather the lost and point them to the Father so they could know real joy, peace, purpose and hope.  No story is more loaded with biographical data about the Father than the Prodigal Son (Luke 15).

We know that the Father is willing to be freehanded with His children, even when he knows that we are capable of squandering our inheritance.

We know that the Father is poised and waiting and longing for lost ones to come home.

We know that the Father is moved by compassion and loaded with grace; eager to forgive and ready to give more blessings even to the one who squanders the first round.  

We know that the Father even loves the angry, resentful child who can't understand why the Father is so loose with his forgiveness and so completely lacking in discrimination.

We know that the Father loves that other brother, but only wishes that that older son would adopt his father's worldview, at least enough to celebrate the return of his brother; and more likely the Father wished that His older son had loved His younger brother enough to seek Him out and bring Him home.

See, ultimately God want us as children and partners, heirs and ambassadors.  The greatest compliment to the host of human kind is that God would want to enlist us as partners and enthusiasts in the matters that matter to the Father.  Like a son and Father hip deep in a Montana river, celebrating Father's Day, God the Father would love each of us to be hip deep in His obsession.