The Best Father in the World!
Matthew 3:17 And suddenly a voice came from heaven, saying, “This is My beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased.”
John 335 “The Father loves the Son, and has given all things into His hand.
John 8:29 “And He who sent Me is with Me. The Father has not left Me alone, for I always do those things that please Him.”
Some of us look back on our parenting skills and wonder if we were prepared to be the kind of parents that the Lord wanted us to be. We all tend to parent like our parents parented us and sometimes they left us with good skills and sometimes not.
Instead of getting our parenting skills from people who have their own problems because of their parents and because of their sin natures, we should have used the relationship of God the Father and His Son as our example. We certainly could have learned from the best Father in the world.
He Was Proud of His Son
How many of us as Fathers have complained about our sons to others? On the other hand, how many of us have publicly presented our sons as the one in whom is all our delight? I realize that the Lord was about 30 when the Lord publicly commended Him, but even at twelve the Lord was doing His Father’s business (Luke 2:49). I believe that the Lord had always done those things that please the Father, even when he was in Joseph’s home being raised by Joseph and Mary. But publicly proclaiming His confidence and pleasure in His Son at the beginning of the Lord’s public ministry would have been a great confidence builder when things got tough from a natural standpoint.
He Trusted His Son
The Son was being sent on a very difficult mission. If the Lord had been like the most of us, He could have resented His mission. He did not! He embraced it and the Father knew He could be trusted to carry out the mission. I believe that is why the Lord tells us that the Father had given all things into His hands. The Lord experienced the cost of obedience by the things that He suffered according to Hebrews 5:8. His mission was costly but He could be trusted with it. Once the plan was set into play, the Father didn’t have to worry about the Lord doing what He had been called to do. I know many of us would argue that our sons cannot be trusted this way. If that is true, maybe it is because they know we didn’t trust them when they were young.
The Best Father Failed
The Lord was the perfect example of what a Son ought to be. While daughters were usually not sent into battle or sent on public missions the way a Son is, still the Lord could be looked at as an example for all children whether sons or daughters. But because of the sin nature in the world today, not all failures in child rearing are the parent’s fault. In Isaiah 1:2 we read, “I have nourished and brought up children, and they have rebelled against Me.” So while we who are parents and particularly we who are fathers could have learned something from the best Father in the world, all failures are not our fault. It is one thing to be a Father and it is another thing to be able to function as a father. I believe that is what is involved when we separate ourselves from the unbelieving world. In 2 Corinthians 6:18, He will be a father to those who come out from unbelievers and are separate from them. Apparently, we can be “fathered” by an unbelieving world in which case the Lord cannot function as our father. Or we can make ourselves available to his nurturing by avoiding the corrupting influence of the rebellious world around us.
Life’s Lessons
The Lord and His Father are the best example of the proper relationship between a father and a son. It is too bad someone didn’t tell us that when we were still young enough to make a difference in the lives of our children. We read self-help books, we did what our parents taught us both directly and indirectly. But maybe we should have read the best text in the world that tells us of the best Father in the world. That text is the Bible.
Bruce Collins
Meditation for the week of June 15, 2014