Understanding the true nature of God the Father

FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 25: This week we are going to look at a passage that reveals the true heart of God. 

In a day and age where Christianity has been tainted by rituals and legalism, the heart of God — who God is — tends to get lost. 

Many have grown up with the view that God is hard to please, boring, and despondent to the relevant needs of mankind.

Others complain that He is silent, distant, or hidden behind the complication of “the church”.

One of the greatest challenges of genuine religion, however, is learning to reject our natural inclination to rely on our experiences and instead come to God’s Word first to get a fresh and real perspective of truth. 

Jesus gave us no limits when He told us, “Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you. 

For everyone who asks receives; the one who seeks finds; and to the one who knocks, the door will be opened” (Matthew 7:7-8).

In fact, the verb tense He used when He uttered those words would be more correctly represented as “continually ask” and “continually seek” and “continually knock”.

So, when Jesus tells us to continually ask, seek, and knock — to continually approach God in expectancy of receiving — He’s also telling us that God is not distant, unresponsive, or silent. 

It seems that Jesus is telling us something quite the opposite.

So, what is God really like? Let’s look at this week’s passage found in Matthew 7:9-11, where Jesus describes the Father’s heart more clearly.

You may be shocked to discover that God is more “vogue” than you think.

“Which of you, if your son asks for bread, will give him a stone? 10.

“Or if he asks for a fish, will give him a snake? 11.

“If you, then, though you are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father in heaven give good gifts to those who ask him!”

One of the reasons Jesus teaches on this subject with a diverse crowd on a mountainside is to reveal who God the Father is.

It was one of the main objectives when He came to earth and He uses an example everyone can understand: the earthly family relationship between father and son. 

He asks, if a son asks for a piece of bread because he is hungry, is his father going to give him a rock? 

Likewise, if he asks for a piece of fish (maybe to make a fish sandwich) will the Father give him a snake instead? 

The idea is not a snake to eat, but a venomous snack that will do him harm. 

The answer to these questions is a rhetorical, “No way!”  

Note that Jesus uses a teaching method here called the lesser to the greater as He draws the comparison between man and his children and God and His children.

Jesus points out that if we, as earthly parents, want to give good gifts to our children, how much more does God in heaven want to give good gifts to us when we ask him? 

That does not sound like a hard-to-please, unresponsive, distant Father. 

Quite the contrary… God’s heart therefore is not to make life difficult for us. 

He does not get a kick out of doing the opposite of what we ask of Him. 

Rather, He wants to give us the best.

Maybe as you were growing up you picked up a false view of God as a killjoy personality that is hard to impress and keeps Himself at a distance from us. 

Not true! As Jesus points out here God is full of love and compassion, the Father of fathers, and He wants to give us good gifts. 

This teaching has to do with correcting our attitudes when it comes to prayer. 

Keep in mind that when you ask of God, or knock on His door, or seek Him, He will come through for His glory.

This does not mean that He will always give you want you want, but He will certainly give you what you need.

As you pray to God, may this passage remind you of His desire to be totally involved in your life.

God wants you to know that He is the Father you can run to… and call him “Daddy”.