Father Figure

He was in the world, and the world was made through Him, and the world did not know Him.  He came to His own, and His own did not receive Him.  But as many as received Him, to them He gave the right to become children of God, to those who believe in His name.
John 1: 10-12 NKJV

It's a tough truth to recognize.  For the bible refers to our Lord as our heavenly Father.  However, what happens when our relationships with our earth bound fathers interfere with our belief in our heavenly Father?  It is a well known fact that our relationships with our earthly parents often follow us throughout our lives and manifest themselves in different ways.  For those who have had healthy, loving relationships, it is usualy pretty easy to make a connection between a loving earthly and heavenly father.  There has never been anything there to stand in the way of that perception.  For myself, with my own father absent from my life from an early age,  I often found it difficult to refer to God as "Father" without conjuring up some bad memory of my human father.  From time to time, the memories of my father would result in a image of God that was definately not true!  My own father had abandoned me, so I feared more than once, that God did not love me.  My sins were far too great, my iniquities were way beyond repair even for God.  This often led to much self condemnation, thinking I was truly unworthy of my Lords love and forgiveness.

For scarcely for a righteous man will one die; yet for a good man someone would even dare to die.  But God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.
Romans 5: 7-8 NKJV

I recall a dear friend of mine at church a few years back who, when he prayed, would speak his words to his "Daddy."  Immediately, those old feelings would come back.  Daddy?  My freind would pray, often in a loving way as a child talks to a loving parent.  This was almost too much for me.  But wait, this wasn't the father in the flesh who had abandoned me from his own life.  No, this "Father" was the one who knew me and cherished me even before I was even born!  Far from being a father who had no interest in me, my heavenly Father never let me out of his sight.  His very thoughts were of me.  The love that my earthly father refused to give, was given in abundance by my loving heavenly Father!  It is in Romans 5: 7-8 that the apostle paul tells us of this unfailing love God has for his children.  When we were still sinners, God sent his very son as a sin offering to cleanse us from that sin and shame we carried.  What greater love will ever be known?  For with God there was no condemnation for my guilt, no punishment for my sin!   No, for Christ gave of himself to wipe that slate clean!  Not only that, where my own father had refused to be a part of his sons life, upon his death Jesus now became a part of me.  As John 1:12 tells us, my birthright now gives me the right to be called a child of God!  Gone is the abandonment, guilt and condemnation of a broken relationship.  Now replaced with the everlasting love, grace and forgivness my REAL father has bestowed on me.

~Scott~