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Wednesday, November 26, 2014

Pastoral Ponderings ~ One Perfectly Responsible Father

          Yesterday morning I had an Aha-moment that was the sudden addition of one word to every reference to God as Father. The word? Responsible.
          Many church-going people have stumbled over God’s undeniable revelation of himself as Father. Bad experiences have a way of shaping our beliefs in bad ways. The self-protective filters we put in place as children may give the appearance of protecting us from painful circumstances while we are young, but they do nothing to help us develop a strong, secure relationship with God.
          Part of Paul’s exhortation-reminder that we were taught “to put off your old self,” was because it is the “old self” that got everything wrong, and will only hinder our relationship with God if it continues in its place.
          To explain why it is we must put off this old self, he clarifies that it, “belongs to your former manner of life and is corrupt through deceitful desires.”[1] That old self does not belong to our present life in Christ. It “belongs” to that “former manner of life,” and that is why we must put it off. We have “the new self, created after the likeness of God in true righteousness and holiness,”[2]and that new self loves getting to know God as Father.
          What, then, does the word “responsible” add to a new-self opportunity to know God as Father? The first answer that pops into my head is: EVERYTHING!
          One way I would describe it is as the addition of one color of the spectrum to the light that I had not realized was less brilliant and glorious than God intended. As soon as that extra color is added to its place, everything the light shines on now shows up much more clearly.
          For a long time I have taken great comfort in how different God is from earthly fathers, including me! However, I now realize that there are treasures of wisdom and knowledge far beyond what I have already known. I anticipate that, for the rest of my life, the view of God as Father will show itself more and more clearly as I see everything about God through this filter of his responsibility for his children.
          While I appreciate the positive journey of getting to know how God’s responsible fatherliness relates to everything in my life, it also helps to explain a negative phenomenon that has not made a lot of sense to me. Many Christians live as though we are saved by grace through faith, but making it to the finish line is all about us. God has done our part; now we have to do ours.[3]
          When we realize that God is our Father, and he is responsible, we can appreciate that the beginning, during, and ending of the race are all in his hands. He has not only provided for our salvation, but he is our salvation. He not only set things in motion, and saved us by his grace, but he is the one who is responsible to get us to heaven, not only in one piece, but completely conformed to the image and likeness of his Son.[4]
          One aspect of God’s responsibility that fills the child of God with confidence is the simple fact that God is able to fulfill all his responsibilities. As a Dad, I had all the fatherly duties expected of all men with children. However, I could never say that I was able to do all my responsibilities. I missed things because I wasn’t smart enough to figure out what to do. I failed at things because I was too immature to handle them. No matter how I look at my fatherly responsibilities, I did not do all I was responsible for. In fact, I’m still learning!
          On the other hand, Father God is able to fulfill all his responsibilities. He has chosen to have a creature who would be in his Son‘s own image and likeness. He has taken responsibility to deal with our sin problem, the thing that keeps us from being in his Son‘s image. The plan for our salvation is his responsibility. Foreknowing us, predestining us to his Son‘s image, calling us, justifying us, and glorifying us, are all his responsibility.[5]
          Once we can open our hearts to this wonderful truth, that God is responsible for us, beginning to end, fulfilling every promise he has made to this creature he calls his children, we can then look at all the changes that are still needed in our lives as things God is responsible to change. He gives us the renewal of our minds in salvation so that we can be transformed.[6] He is the one who began a good work in us, so he is the one who will carry it on to completion at the day of Jesus‘ return.[7] He can tell us to put off that sarky old self because he has given us a “new self, created after the likeness of God in true righteousness and holiness.”[8]
          One thing that I had to present to God with respect to his responsibility for his children is in relation to prayer. There is something about God being responsible that caused him to give this to his children, to teach this to his children. There is a way that we ask and receive in prayer because God is responsible for us. This is his will that we receive ­­­­­what we ask for in prayer.[9]
          In fact, for us to understand this, that God works through prayer as a devoted Father who is responsible for his children, is his responsibility! The Aha-moment of yesterday morning was his responsibility. The hunger to know God as the responsible Father is something he is doing in us because we are his responsibility.
          God is going to stir up his children to know and do his will about prayer, and he is going to make men like me into men of prayer, because he is responsible for us. God will fatherly lead his children into prayer because it is like his Son to talk to him. God delights in us, and we depend on him.
The cross of Jesus Christ settles for every child of God how responsible the Father is to save those he has chosen. It is not only that he must do what he has set out to do, but that he is the Father. He has created a creature in the image of his Son, and so he must relate to this new creature with the same fatherly responsibility as he has towards his Son.
          A second thing that came up with respect to God‘s responsibility for his children is in relation to our so great salvation. All the things we have been learning about the “by this you shall know” statements in I John,[10] is a revelation of the God who is taking full responsibility for the saving of his children, and who writes these things in his book so that his children can know how responsible he is.
          I even think that there is something in the whole “by the Spirit whom he has given us” (3:24) that God wants us to see through this lens of his responsibility. In a way, it is not so much whether we are good at relating to God‘s Spirit, or whether we are good at being filled with his Spirit, or we are good at praying in his Spirit. It is all about the reality that God, as the one who is responsible for our salvation, has also made himself responsible to assure us of our salvation. He has not only given us his Spirit, but he has given us a book filled with instructions and descriptions and revelations of the life of the Spirit in his children.
          I am very thankful for this brighter illumination of the fatherly responsibilities of God. I know that many believers would find great comfort in this reality that they are not the ones responsible for our relationship to God, but he is fully responsible for his relationship to us. We are his idea. Making a creature out of dirt that would end up fully conformed to the image of Jesus Christ? His idea. And, because we are his idea, his design, his creation, he is obligated to his own responsibilities to his children to finish what he has started. The more we join him in his word, in prayer, and in his Spirit, the more brightly his light shines on the wonders of his fatherly relationship to his children.
         
© 2014 Monte Vigh ~ Box 517, Merritt, BC, Canada, V1K 1B8 ~ in2freedom@gmail.com
Unless otherwise noted, Scriptures are from the English Standard Version (The Holy Bible, English Standard Version Copyright © 2001 by Crossway Bibles, a division of Good News Publishers.)





[1] Ephesians 4:22
[2] Ephesians 4:24
[3] That’s the kind of thinking I really disliked in the old Touched by an Angel TV show.
[4] Genesis 1:26-27; Romans 8:29; I John 3:2
[5] Romans 8:28-30
[6] Romans 12:1-2
[7] Philippians 1:6
[8] Ephesians 4:24
[9] I John 3:22
[10] This has been an ongoing series in our home church, and something I have written about in various posts. The ‘By This’ of Ultimate assurance: http://in2freedom.blogspot.ca/2014/09/pastoral-ponderings-by-this-of-ultimate.html; Eleven Assurances from Older Brother John: http://in2freedom.blogspot.ca/2014/09/considerations-eleven-assurances-from.html

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