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Tag: Spirit of God

Our Father :: The Paternity of God

We celebrated Father’s day 2011 on June 19, 2011 and I wondered as to what kind of Father, our God is? As I wondered, I realized that the prayer that Jesus taught His disciples to pray not only addresses God as Father, but in it, are hidden many characteristics of the kind of Father that God, Our Father, is. When Jesus taught the disciples how to pray, he started out by addressing God as ‘Our Father’. This establishes the Paternity of God. However, even in our natural self, we don’t go around calling anyone other than our earthly father (biological/foster) as our father. In the same manner, only if we have been born into or adopted into God’s family, can we address God as Our Father. So how can one be born into or adopted into God’s family or in other words, what would give someone the right to address the Almighty Creator God as ‘Our Father’?

We can address God as Our Father, only if you have been born again into God’s family. To be born again is to be redeemed by the Son of God, Jesus Christ. Redemption comes by believing in Jesus Christ; believing that He is the Only begotten Son of God, and the Only Way to God the Father (John 14:6). Without believing (through faith), we cannot receive the Spirit of adoption in our hearts and without being adopted, we cannot address God as ‘Out Father’. The Paternity of God comes with the free gift of His Spirit being poured into the hearts of all who believe in Jesus Christ. When we believe, we receive as an inheritance the very essence of God which is eternal life, overcoming death and its power. When we believe in His Son Jesus Christ, God accepts and adopts us as His very own.

Many a times in the Bible, we see God saying, “I shall be their God and they shall be my people”, but in the consummation of the Scripture, from the book of Revelation, we see how God says to all who overcome by believing in Jesus Christ, “I will be his [her] God and he [she] shall be my my son [daughter]” (Revelation 21:7), implying that God will be ‘Our Father’.

Point(s) to ponder:
Can you address God as ‘Our Father’? In other words, “Have you been redeemed by the blood of His Son Jesus Christ?” i.e., Have you believed in Jesus Christ, God’s Only begotten Son? i.e., Have you been adopted into God’s family?

Matthew 6:9 (KJV)
9 After this manner therefore pray ye: Our Father which art in heaven, Hallowed be thy name.

Galatians 4:4-7 (KJV)
4 But when the fulness of the time was come, God sent forth his Son, made of a woman, made under the law,
5 To redeem them that were under the law, that we might receive the adoption of sons.
6 And because ye are sons, God hath sent forth the Spirit of his Son into your hearts, crying, Abba, Father.
7 Wherefore thou art no more a servant, but a son; and if a son, then an heir of God through Christ.

Jesus in the OT :: Joel

The book of Joel gives us a glimpse of who Jesus is in the Old Testament (O.T).

Little is known about prophet Joel, except that we know he is the Son of Pethuel, who speaks FORTHRIGHTLY and FORCEFULLY a message that is FOREBODING which at the same time is FILLED with Hope.

The book can essentially be divided into two major themes

  • 1st : The day of the Locust – signifying the destruction of what we believe sustains us
  • 2nd : The day of the Lord – signifying not just a time of SUSTENANCE but of SAVING as well.

The message in this book moves from the PUNISHMENT of God to the PRESENCE of God and in doing so CALLS to REPENTANCE, stating  Rend your hearts and turn to God (Joel 2:13) and get ready to meet the Bridegroom (Jesus Christ) by gathering, sanctifying and assembling yourself, your children and infants (Joel 2:16)

And until the day of God’s PRESENCE with man, in bodily form, God PROMISES to  pour out his Spirit on all flesh. (Joel 2:28-29).

Galatians 4:6 states that God sent forth the Spirit of his Son into our hearts.

In Joel, Jesus is spirit of God, who is poured into the hearts of all.

Joel 2:28- 29 (KJV)
28
And it shall come to pass afterward, that I will pour out my spirit upon all flesh; and your sons and your daughters shall prophesy, your old men shall dream dreams, your young men shall see visions:
29 And also upon the servants and upon the handmaids in those days will I pour out my spirit.

Galatians 4:4-6 (KJV)
4
But when the fulness of the time was come, God sent forth his Son, made of a woman, made under the law,
5
To redeem them that were under the law, that we might receive the adoption of sons.
6
And because ye are sons, God hath sent forth the Spirit of his Son into your hearts, crying, Abba, Father.

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